Operation Krill
by kaleidoscopeepocsodielak
Summary: In addition to original characters, the main characters are Cole Ortiz, Wes Mitchell, Travis Marks, Chloe O'Brian, and Jack Bauer. I like constructive criticism. I also reference many previous events from both shows, so beware of spoilers. Rated T for language and violence. There is a poll on my profile for which I request participation.
1. 7:00 AM - 8:00 AM

Chapter 1

Agent Cole Ortiz

The hunt for Jack Bauer would never stop. It did not matter if President Taylor insisted that the man had served his country. For one thing, she had left office in disgrace. For another, no one could kill Russians in an embassy and get away with it. So the man who had saved America at least 8 times remained one of America's most wanted fugitives. Cole Ortiz looked at the "Wanted" poster every day at CTU. _If it's still up, then he's still out there_, he would tell himself. It made him smile every day for 2 years.

Standing one inch taller than 6 feet, Cole was an intimidating field agent… unless the terrorists found out his name. He had gotten used to all the fossil fuel jokes from colleagues, but when a courier for a major terrorist doubled over laughing during an interrogation, Cole had to send in Chloe O'Brian. Embarrassing. Analysts never let something like this go. He stormed out of Interrogation 5, gnashing his teeth. Every muscle tensed with frustration as he debated whether he should punch a wall or kick a trashcan.

CTU's tell-tale telephone ringtone sounded throughout the room as he stalked through the main room. Various analysts and security guards milled about, carrying out daily tasks. He overheard a worker verbally abusing another for forgetting to open a socket. Cole felt a little better as he chuckled at the computer nerds' jargon. Dana's jargon. His late fiancé's betrayal twisted his stomach as if she had stabbed him there but no one had bothered to remove the knife. _C'mon, it's been two years. Get over her._ The inner command was impossible. _It's just too soon,_ he decided.

The 36 year-old moved toward his office but stopped short when he heard a voice call for him. Chloe, a thick file in hand, had obviously finished the interrogation without trouble of her own. Perhaps she had annoyed the terrorist into divulging information about some dastardly new scheme. Even as director of New York City's CTU, she pouted at all moments of the day like the sour expression had been molded from clay. Cole could forgive her though. He would have a horrible attitude if he wore high heels every day too.

"What did you need?" Cole asked, frustration still showing through.

"Cole, this has got to stop. You are in charge when you start an interrogation. I can't just clean up your mess every time you can't take an insult. Fix it or I'll have to find someone who isn't so sensitive."

"Sensitive?" Cole argued at a whisper. "His clothes were the only things keeping his sides from splitting! How can I ask questions when he's laughing louder than a foghorn?"

"You'll just have to adjust," Chloe insisted. "I like you Cole, and I appreciate what you did for Jack all those years ago, but if you can't do the job right, I'll need to replace you."

"What am I supposed to do? Change my name?" Cole raised his hands as if in surrender.

"You could get rid of that ridiculous New Yorker accent," she suggested.

"But it makes me sound tough!"

"No," Chloe insisted. "It makes you sound like you're trying to sound tough because it isn't your real voice."

"At least I say 'nuclear' instead of 'nucular.'"

Chloe rolled her eyes as her personality reasserted itself. "I don't have time for this, Cole. Operation Krill is going down tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Cole gasped. "Do you know what they're planning?"

"I'll explain at the briefing in 5. Have Bernard join you. We'll be live with the Joint Chiefs."

"And the President?" Cole assumed.

"Unfortunately no. He's busy with the tour."

"That wouldn't have stopped Palmer."

"Well we no longer have any Palmers in office, so that doesn't really help me, does it?"

She clomped off in her red stilettos. _Some people just weren't meant for command_, Cole thought to himself. Chloe may get results for her superiors, but her people skills still needed improvement. _Will that ever change?_ he wondered as he assembled all the necessary personnel. Bernard, Cole's probie, offered a confused expression when ordered into the briefing room. As a former marine, Bernard obeyed the order without question, but that did not stay his curiosity.

"Am I in trouble?" The man asked. Bernard's Columbian accent never ceased to confuse Cole. The probie was born in Switzerland and raised in the Bronx. Yet he held on to his mother's heritage as a child holds onto a teddy bear.

"No," Cole answered tentatively. "Should you be?"

Bernard's eyes widened. He was an antelope trying to outrun a cheetah. "No…I don't think so…I mean…of course not…unless I forgot to…"

"Relax. We wouldn't have you in with the Joint Chiefs unless we thought you were a model agent. You're not relaxing."

The compliment had overwhelmed him so much that Cole thought the 26 year-old would hyperventilate. He would have asked for a paper bag for the rookie had he not known that CTU did not bother to stock itself with such rudimentary devices. Cole could not think of a good method for dealing with this unexpected reaction except slapping the shorter man at the small of his back. "Breathe, man! How can you handle field work like it's nothing when talking to your superiors makes you freak out?"

"I don't know…must be a fear of failure or…I don't know," Bernard replied without any assertion.

"Well, if you want to make it here, you'll have to get over it," Cole replied as he opened the door to the briefing room. All the other staff had already arrived. Each senior member of CTU was glancing over a manila folder stuffed with pages about Operation Krill.

No matter what Cole had told his subordinate, he had no idea why Chloe wanted the probie in this meeting. Bernard did his work well enough, and Cole would trust the rookie with his life in the field. But the guy practically pissed himself whenever a superior looked his way. How had the guy survived firefights in Iran, let alone basic training? It was all just a big mystery to Cole.

On the screen at the front of the glass room hung the largest flat-screen monitor in production. The plasma screen showed the HeadCase logo, a person's head within a smart phone. Soon, five-star generals would appear on screen, ready to hear Chloe O'Brian's report. For PR purposes, Chloe suppressed her pouty lips whenever someone of significance weighed in during a briefing. Until then, however, the CTU agents ignored her "I just ate a million sour gummy worms in one bite" face.

Candice Worthington, the head of logistics, gabbed with her nearby co-workers about something that caused the other five agents to laugh. Warren Kemper, now in hysterics, focused his attention on Cole for no apparent reason. _They know!_ It was that insecure voice which had festered within the field agent since Dana showed her true colors. Whenever he made a mistake, her voice haunted him, reminding Cole that the others were more critical of him due to his misplaced trust. _They're mocking you and you can't do a thing about it, you worthless little boy! You deserve it. You deserve every laugh. You call yourself a field agent, but you can't even interrogate a prisoner. No one respects you. They never will! You deserve it, Cole._

The voice sent a chill down his spine. Goosebumps arose all over his epidermis. He could not wait for Chloe to begin the briefing. With generals, however, a five minute warning usually equated to 15 minutes. They expected punctuality from others but could not afford to share the same courtesy. Cole checked his watch in an effort to drown out Dana. Just then, the first head showed up on the screen. Within minutes four more joined the first. They all looked so old, yet Cole would not dare mention it aloud. General Thompson still looked like he could squish a man's head with just his forefinger and thumb, even at 63.

"Generals O'Neill, Thompson, Hammond, Weaver, and Tither," Chloe began the greetings, "you are on with Warren Kemper, head of tactical, Candice Worthington, head of logistics, Cole Ortiz, head of field ops, Hubert Carter, head of analysts, and agents Bernard Carlson, Doris Fillbey, Adam McQueen, and Lois Garfield along with myself."

"Thank you, Mrs. O'Brian," a bored General Weaver responded. She did not appear to have listened to any of the names listed, but from previous experience, Cole knew that she was sharp as a syringe.

"As you are all aware by now, we have been hearing about Operation Krill for some time. Only within this hour did we learn anything of value from a reliable informant," O'Brian stated, looking over at Cole when she mentioned the informant. "Carlos Sanchez was hired by a company called Krill Inc. as a courier. He was taking a package to a warehouse in LA when the package opened and he found large quantities of C4. Fortunately, Mr. Sanchez was a responsible citizen and reported all that he knew. From additional information Mr. Sanchez gathered, we know a group of terrorists who call themselves Purgadores de Tierra have threatened to launch a series of attacks tomorrow. The strike will be highly organized."

"What is their target?" General O'Neill asked.

"From what we can tell right now, Los Angeles is the main target, but they mean to attack more cities in the near future as well," Chloe replied.

"Do we know their method of attack?" asked General Hammond. His Texan drawl earned him a slight pause from the CTU Director as she tried to regain composure.

"The real question, General, is 'what method won't they use?'" she asserted. "Our source tells us that the Purgadores have gotten their hands on five low-yield nuclear bombs, thousands of small explosives capable of demolishing single buildings, and high-tech weaponry. Worst of all, we cannot even estimate how many people the Purgadores have recruited to their cause."

General Weaver commented, "So you say that Los Angeles is the main target, correct?"

"It is the city with the highest possible casualty rate, but we expect the terrorists to hit the other cities as well."

"For all we know, they've switched target cities since you acquired this information," General Tither said, crossing his arms. "Perhaps your source is in league with this group of Puke-a-doors and fed you false intel."

"With all due respect, general," Chloe argued, beginning to lose her tactful façade, "Our best people worked on getting this, and even if this is all a hoax, we cannot afford to stand around and wait for the terrorist to pull our pants down. We must act on this or we will be too late."

"What do you propose we do?" General Weaver inquired.

"We send a team to Los Angeles right away. Since CTU is only active in New York, I will need to coordinate from here."

"Then who will head this ground team, Mrs. O'Brian?" General O'Neill asked.

"Cole Ortiz."

Detective Wes Mitchell

Wes had just woken up 15 minutes ago, and already he had accomplished more than the average human being. Were he in a competition, he would trounce just about anyone. His secret? Over time, Wes had developed a simple routine for the start and end of each day. He made his bed, showered, combed his hair, ate fruit, brushed every tooth three times, flossed, and dressed. Every now and then, he would adjust the routine to experiment with increased efficiency, but it was never anything major. The routine allowed for any unexpected problems. Today, for instance, he found a splotch on his favorite red oxford. It may have been on the underside of the collar, but he did not want to take any chances. After dropping the shirt into the waste basket, he found a replacement.

He required 30 minutes to travel from the hotel to the station, and he had an hour before his work day started. Like any other day, Wes took no chance at being late. A car accident could, after all, extend the driving time to an hour. He left immediately, passing by a few yawning hotel employees. They were friendly folk, but he had hopes of moving out eventually. Those plans were a year old, but that did not make them any less valid. He touched his left ring finger. No cool metal wrapped around this digit. A short, irrational burst of panic shot through him until he bitterly remembered the divorce. It amazed Wes that he still had to convince himself that it had happened even after a year.

_Time to get over Alex._ Travis would say. _What you need is a little slice of –_ Wes pushed the thought aside. He hated when his unruly partner butted into his personal life, even when it was just in his head. Somehow, though, he could not deny the truth in head-Travis' words. Alex had moved on to seeing others. As selfish as it felt, Wes wanted to fill the void left by his ex-wife. _It's just too soon,_ he decided.

Wes's drive to the station took 2 minutes more than usual, which confirmed in his mind that leaving early was the right thing to do. He said his "good mornings" to various detectives as he passed through the den of desks. They responded with grunts or ignored him completely. That did not matter. So long as he tried, the routine worked. Without sending morning pleasantries, the others would conspire against his routine. Saying "good morning" was merely preventative. At his desk, Wes noticed immediately that someone had used his stapler and removed two red pens. Irresponsible people annoyed him to no end, and, to make matters worse, they expected him to be responsible for them. It was like working with kindergarteners all day.

Thirty seconds late, the worst of the children in adult bodies showed up to work. There was a short list of 300 things that bothered Wes, and in their short time as partners Travis had done 298 of them at least 5 times each. Wes was not the type to let these things go. _If you borrow a pen from me, at least have the decency to put it back where you found it!_ he had said on at least 47 occasions in the last month. As far as Travis was concerned, though, Wes was lucky if the pencil was requested first.

"Good evening," Wes greeted sarcastically.

"Yeah, whatever, man," Travis answered having ignored both words. "So guess what I did last night!"

"Travis, when the answer is the same every day, it really isn't much of a guessing game," Wes complained. "You found a girl at a bar. She was hot, so you took her to your place and you continued your undisciplined, immature high school glory days."

"You left out the best part!" Travis said, a look of glee on his face.

"What? Did she have a sister?"

"Two sisters!"

"I'm so…happy for you," Wes replied in as droll a tone as he could muster. "We've got a department meeting in a few minutes, and according to the memo sent out two minutes ago we've got a guy coming in from something called CTU. I'm not sure what that is, but it looks pretty important. In any case, we'll need to keep digging for leads into Dr. Gomez."

Dr. Ricardo Gomez was a local weapons expert who had the respect of practically every scientists living on planet Earth. Only hippies seemed to have a problem with his field choice, but no one ever threatened his life. Despite all this, Dr. Gomez had gone missing two days before and the blood found at the scene, while not much, had been enough to suggest murder could have occurred. Wes believed in the adage, "No body, no crime," but Travis stubbornly insisted on taking the case. Thus, Wes had filled his entire night thinking of ways he could solve the mystery. From the look on Travis' face, however, Wes guessed that his partner did not much care about the missing doctor.

"CTU? Are you kidding me?"

"Do I ever joke about memos?"

Travis shrugged at the question. "I wasn't aware that you had a sense of humor."

"Then why bother to ask…wait…you know something about this CTU," Wes surmised.

"Duh!" Travis cried out. "Anybody who grew up in LA knows about how CTU's saved our sorry butts more times than I can count."

"So six times, huh?"

Travis, laughing humorlessly, replied, "That was a great joke for a 70 year-old."

"Mitchell! Marks! Get in here!" yelled a raspy voice. Captain Sutton poked out his thick head from around the door to the conference room. Wes felt a rush of embarrassment as he looked into the reproachful eyes of his supervisor. This mistake could cast a pall over the entire day if Wes allowed it.

Travis sprang into action faster than usual, and Wes hastened after his partner. This was just a fleeting example of how going with the flow could make structured living appear foolish. At moments like this, Wes envied the man he normally could not stand. As usual, the moment ended as soon as it began as Travis turned to flirt with a passing female file clerk. Normally, Wes would take the time to discourage such grievous protocol breaches, but forgoing this opportunity allowed him to walk into the conference room first. His mind performed a celebratory fist pump.

"Well look who decided to grace us with his presence!" said an obnoxious blond detective in between chuckles.

"Great to see you too, Scott," Travis countered. "Did you bring the cinnamon rolls like I asked?"

Wes could not stifle his own guffaws. Not that he had put much effort into it. Nora did deserve anything dished at her, in Wes' opinion. For all the grief Travis caused, at least his sense of humor worked in conjunction with excellent timing. "I don't see any coffee," Wes added. "Was the barista too surly this morning?" Almost as soon as he said it, Wes knew he had killed the joke. He wanted to be the guy that everyone liked, easy-going and funny, but he always came off as a jerk or tool. Wes sighed as other officers turned away from his remarks. Travis gave a thumbs-up with accompanying sound effects as if self-humiliation was not enough. Once again, Wes felt all alone even surrounded by people who should have been his friends.

"Good morning, everyone!" Captain Sutton remarked with his scratchy voice. "I'd like to welcome you all back to another day of restoring order to the universe. Now before we begin this conference, I want you all to take a deep breath and hold it."

Out of habit, everyone else in the room complied…everyone except Wes, that is. Travis, who observed this predictable behavior, inhaled with unnecessary finesse. Wes hated these pointless exercises of "finding one's center." They were all bogus in his mind just as therapy and sequels. Thanks to Travis, Wes usually encountered all three every day.

"Okay, breathe out," the portly captain continued. "Now imagine that you have just been given the biggest scoop of ice cream. It can be any flavor you want. Take your spoon and eat it. Wes you're not eating your ice cream."

"That's because I'm lactose intolerant," Wes shot back.

Travis dropped his invisible bowl and said, "Really? Then why are you always drinking those protein shakes?"

"It's called soy milk. Ever heard of it?"

"That's enough!" Captain Sutton interrupted. "I hope you boys are happy. You just ruined a really fun activity that Dr. Ryan used with me and my wife. It turned us both on when we were eating the same flavor."

"We didn't need to know that," Wes said, cringing.

"I could stand to hear a little more," Nora disagreed.

"Unfortunately we don't have time for that," Travis interposed. "We've got a team from CTU coming in today and we need to be on our game. So, Cap, if you'd continue…"

_Travis wanting to do the work? This is gonna be good._

Even Captain Sutton took a while to collect his thoughts after Travis' thoughtful idea. "For those of you who don't know, CTU is a government agency that specializes in dealing with terrorists. They were the ones who saved President David Palmer's life when he was running for senate. They moved a nuclear bomb to the Mojave Desert when they couldn't disarm it. They even prevented a biological attack that would have eradicated this country. These people deal with impossible situations every day and deserve our utmost respect. Since they no longer have any offices in the Western states, we will be hosting this team. I want you all to cooperate with them as this will no doubt be a high priority. If they tell you to assist them, drop whatever you're doing and go the extra mile. If that means letting some bad guys go for the day, that's what we'll do. I don't know how long CTU will be here, so don't ask. Any questions?"

Travis raised his hand like a third grader. "How long will they be…"

"Shut up, Marks!" Captain Sutton yelled. After calming himself, he apologized and asked, "Are there any _real_ questions? No? Then get to it."

As Wes exited the conference room, he watched as his giddy partner hummed to himself. Once everyone had cleared out, Wes confronted Travis. "How did you know about these guys?"

"When I was a kid in high school," Travis revealed, "a terrorist broke into one of my younger foster brother's school. He was planning to release a virus into the air, which would have been a guaranteed death sentence for every kid in there. My kid bro told me that night that these CTU agents stormed in after the guy. This one agent was so committed to keeping my brother safe that he let his partner cut off his hand. His name was Chase Edmunds. After I heard that story, I had to go meet the guy. They had reattached his hand by this point, but I was just in awe that a guy would care so much for kids he didn't even know. I asked him how he got started. He said he'd been a cop before joining CTU. From that moment, all I've wanted to do was be a cop just like him."

"One who gets his limbs amputated?" Wes teased.

"Naw, man. I wanted to help people and be the guy that everyone could point to and say, 'I want to be like him.'"

President Kenneth Smith

Cameras flashed at the most powerful man in the United States. He welcomed it as if it were a rich chocolate dessert. Nothing would take away from this moment as the people of Cleveland roared his surname. It was the most beautiful sound in the world. _If only I could make this moment last forever_, he thought. He could think of no previous time he had felt this happy to be alive. All too soon, however, Agents Rover and Florissant escorted him to the motorcade.

Inside the black limousine sat a tall, self-confident black woman. Her long black hair had been combed and straightened, and Kenneth guessed that she had applied some kind of product so that the hairs remained that way. She would have been the prettiest member of his cabinet if she spent less time frowning. It takes extreme control of facial muscles to pull off a true frown. Like all other facets of this woman's life, she had full control. Greeting someone with this type of expression did not occur often for Kenneth, and it always felt like he was wrestling a polar bear whenever he tried breaking the ice.

"Well…I thought that went well," he at last said, using the extreme opposite of the woman's countenance. "What do you think, Sandra?"

Sandra Palmer's lips curved further down, if that was even possible. "Sir, when a President takes office, there is traditionally what is called a honeymoon period."

"Yes, Sandy, I'm aware of that," Kenneth replied, hoping to extract the meaning behind here upside-down smile. "I'm living it right now, aren't I?"

"Not anymore. What you just did was like taking your bride down to the beach, watching the stars together, and then drowning her. The people who elected you are furious."

Kenneth's brow crinkled, revealing where his wrinkles would eventually dominate his face. "Why should they be upset?"

Sandra spoke slowly as if explaining the purpose of toilets to a foreigner who had always used banana leaves. "You just told the world that you pray to Vishnu every morning and night."

"So? I was being honest. You've always told me that people love an honest politician."

"But you ran for presidency with the implication that you are a die-hard protestant. Countering that information just thirteen days after being sworn in let the whole country know that you _aren't_ an honest man."

Now Kenneth was truly confused. "But I never implicated that!"

The President's Chief of Staff rolled her eyes either at the horrendous malapropism or her boss's incredible delusion. "Let's think about that, shall we? You got several ministers to publicly endorse you, you went to a Baptist church every Sunday leading up to the election, and you used Bible quotations in many of your speeches. That's just three examples. Should I go on?"

"But the people loved me!" Kenneth cried. "They were shouting my name."

"I believe their exact words were, 'Impeach Smith! Impeach Smith!'"

The new President slumped back in his seat, trying to take in this unexpected information. How could things have gone so wrong? Now the mob's signs and ferocity came into sharp focus. Only the Secret Service kept the more passionate citizens at bay. _At least it can't get any worse_, he thought to himself.

One second later, Sandra Palmer's smart phone played "Taps." She answered the call, "Yes, General Weaver? The speech is finished…Oh…Why didn't you call sooner? Kenny, did you order all calls halted until the end of your celebration speech?"

"Uh…"

"Dammit! Well it looks like we'll have to cut the cross-country tour short anyway. We'll be ready for a full briefing within the hour…thank you…keep me posted."

"What's going on?" President Smith asked.

"Sir, there is a plot against this country in the works as we speak."

"Was it really that big of a mistake?" the President asked sheepishly, still thinking over his blunder.

"No. It appears that terrorists have been plotting this for some time. I don't know the specifics, but we'll have to stay in the loop or people will think they voted for the wrong man. Rover! Take us to the capital building!"


	2. 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM

Chapter 2

Agent Cole Ortiz

"I want an NSA team on the ground now. I'll be directing them on the flight. I also need Chloe to make sure all satellites are positioned to our advantage," Cole ordered his probie. Bernard wrote every word meticulously. If anyone was going to make a mistake, it would not be him. The two climbed the stairs to a small passenger jet. As much as Cole hated flying, he could not pause to consider just how far off the ground he would soon find himself. Standing at the top of the ladder with anxious people behind him ready to ascend the stairs was bad enough. Hoping that no one would notice his unease, Cole turned and asked, "Who contacted LAPD?"

"I did!" called out Lois Garfield. "I told you that before we left, remember?"

Cole regarded the bespectacled redhead with a mask of anger. It was all Lois needed to remember whom she reported to. He had in fact remembered her earlier report, but no one needed to know that. Making a mental note to apologize later, Cole carried his laptop toward his seat. Looking out the window, he could see the flaps ready for take-off. Bernard sat across the aisle with a phone to his ear. The other three members of the team took their seats soon after, each focused on what they needed to do.

The dedication this line of work required was no less than absolute, and Cole could see in their eyes that his team members were perfect. So had so many other agents Cole had known. Many of them were now dead thanks to their dedication. _Will I meet the same fate today?_ It was an unusual question for the man to consider. Every day at CTU could be his swan song, but it never inspired serious thought before now. Even when he risked his life for President Hassan all those years ago, the possibility of death did not cause any hesitation.

"How many times has this plane flown to LA?" Cole asked as the plane taxied out to the runway.

"I don't know," Bernard answered before returning to his phone call. "Thank you, Agent Pilfer. Now that area will take you how long to canvas?"

"It's just that I want to know how many successful flights this thing has," Cole whispered to himself, perhaps a bit too loud.

"All of them," Doris answered from behind, her mouth gushing with sarcasm.

"Thank you, Doris. I feel much better now," Cole replied equaling her facetious tone.

"Cole, we've got the NSA team on standby. Where do you want them?"

The flash back to reality brought into focus just how much power he held over everything that would happen today. "I need them looking for likely repositories. Whoever it is in charge of the Purgadores has to be storing the weapons somewhere in the city. We need to take control of whatever they've got before they can use anything."

"Where do you want them to start?" Bernard asked as the engine propelled the airplane forward and upward.

Cole considered before telling them to start with the warehouse district. For a city like Los Angeles, that search would still take more time than Cole wanted, but waiting for an opportune moment was probable as finding evidence exonerating his late fiancé. _Why does every damn thing remind me of her today?_ If Chloe or anyone else found out how distracted Cole felt, he would not only lose the day's command, but they would also force him into a therapist's chair. The thought made him queasy. He had been in that situation before.

When Cole first lost a fellow officer in the marines, a squat woman with three large moles over the right nostril had him on her lumpy red couch. Dr. Carney had been sweet and understanding, but Cole always felt so powerless whenever he had plopped down onto the tear-stained upholstery. She would always direct the conversation toward how he felt about watching Corporal Boslie lose cohesion over an IED. It never did matter how Cole felt. Boslie was gone, and he could never fix that. Dr. Carney implied several times that she believed Cole felt responsible. _Untrue_, Cole thought to himself. _I know that I'm responsible. If I had called her back just one more time, she might have stopped trying to rescue that kid._

"Lois, get the LAPD on the phone. I want them to start work immediately."

"Yes, sir," she replied while simultaneously pulling out her iPhone. With a few quick taps, she had already completed the order. "Yes, Commissioner Prestwick? This is Agent Garfield again, and no I don't want lasagna. I need you and the other four commissioners to get on the phone right now. Make it clear to every office and department that they are working for CTU. I don't care if they work in homicide or the SWAT team. Their only mission for the day is finding these terrorists. Understand? Good. Call me back when you have everything. ready to go."

"Lasagna?" Cole said as Lois put away her phone. "Why would he offer lasagna?"

"Think real hard, Ortiz. Maybe the answer'll come to you," Doris responded.

"How much do you like sitting in a pressurized cabin, Fillbey? I can change your situation quick, if that's what you want." As much as Cole could appreciate a dry sense of humor, he would not accept insubordination on a day like today. Not to mention he felt grouchy about having to make this flight in the first place.

A loud set of clicking noises suddenly emanated from the rear of the plane. At first, Cole assumed it was just an apparatus on the aircraft doing its job, but the noise was too inconsistent. Upon turning around, he saw a pimple-faced man barely older than Bernard fiddling with his assault rifle. "McQueen, what the hell are you doing with that?"

Adam nearly dropped his weapon and looked with a start towards Cole. "Just disassembling and reassembling my Barrett, sir," he replied with a more relaxed tone now that he knew who had addressed him.

"Why?" Cole asked exasperated.

"I need the practice," Adam answered as he continued his work, not taking the hint.

"Put your gun back together and get to work right this instant," Cole ordered, forgetting to use his tough-guy New Yorker accent. "We're on an airplane, for crying out loud!"

In an instant, Adam's eyes bulged as he frantically put the rifle back to its original condition. "Yes, sir."

Before Cole could find out how Bernard was occupying his time, Lois' iPhone started playing "Smoke on the Water." She tapped the "Accept Call" button. "Hello? Who is this? I don't care how many open homicides, you're working on, Captain Sutton. We need your manpower. Get your detectives on this right now. You want to what? Well Agent Ortiz is busy at the moment, so you'll just have to deal with me. Order your detectives off their cases and have them start looking for leads on the terrorists. If they don't then today's homicides won't matter, 'cause these people want to take out the whole city. I don't want to say it again. And don't call back unless you have some news for us."

"What was that about?" Cole asked.

"Oh," Lois replied, reverting from her belligerent tone toward her usual docile one, "Some detective thinks his case is more important, and I was letting the officer in charge know just how imperative this investigation is."

"Good," Cole responded. "This detective might be a problem. What was his name?"

"_His_ name? So only men can be detectives, is that what you're saying?"

"Remember my earlier offer, Doris? It's still available."

"His name is Wes Mitchell."

"Thank you, Garfield. If he becomes a problem, we may need to have eyes on him."

Detective Wes Mitchell

"But Captain!" Wes argued. "We've got some solid leads on this Dr. Gomez case. If we give up now, we could lose everything. His family will never find justice…"

"Just yesterday you were complaining that his case doesn't belong in robbery/homicide," Captain Sutton retaliated. "You said it was just a missing persons case…"

"I still don't know why you'd turn one of those down," Travis put in, delivering yet another proverbial knife to Wes' already bloody back.

"Stow it, Travis. I can tell by your sheepish grin that you want to stay on this case too. The fact remains that our city has been threatened by terrorists, and we need to deal with them. Normally we let the feds handle this sort of thing, but their resources are strained at the moment. Make nice with the agents and we'll get through the day. With any luck, this time tomorrow, the whole thing will be resolved. Get crackin'. That's an order."

The short, gray-haired captain sauntered back to his office where Wes guessed he would meditate for the next half hour. _If only this could get resolved in one day! _Wes thought. Travis flashed his bright white smile at his partner. "What?" Wes asked, already peeved with his supervisor. Now he had to deal with immaturity on top of frustration.

Travis continued displaying his "I-know-something-you-don't-know" grin for another seventeen seconds before answering. "We're not really gonna give up the Gomez case, are we?"

The grin was contagious. Wes fought to hide it, but knowing that his partner was on the same page was enough to turn off Wes' filter. Normally, he obeyed authority, and he avoided rule bending of any kind. But when some mysterious group of federal agents tried turning his world upside-down, rules were secondary. Sure the terrorists were a priority, but he could not just abandon a fresh case like this one. He craved the continuity. Giving up would only be a last resort. "Of course not," Wes at last replied.

Wes walked toward the exit without another word, expecting his partner to follow.

President Kenneth Smith

The long, black vehicle slowed to a stop just outside Ohio's capital building. Agent Florissant hastily opened his door, hopped out, and proceeded to open President Smith's door. Florissant gave no indication that he had heard or cared about Kenneth's distressing conversation with Sandra Palmer. Only his long strides showed signs of urgency. The stoic expression unreadable as ever, Florissant assisted Sandra out of her seat as if she needed the help. Kenneth liked the man's chivalry even if his Chief of Staff thought it was antiquated.

The two politicians strode up the stairs toward the capital as Florissant, Rover, and five other secret service agents accompanied them. Kenneth noted how the proximity between him and the agents had grown shorter since the morning. Was this because of the speech or terror threat? He did not bother to ask as Rover ushered them forward. Clearly she did not share Florissant's calm demeanor. The balance between Florissant and Rover reassured the President. While he could rely on one to show comprehension of serious matters, Kenneth could also expect the other to act as though the world would continue revolving no matter the outcome.

Many cars on the road slowed at the sight of President Smith entering their capital building. Perhaps they had not heard about the morning's speech yet. Perhaps some of his voters still approved of him even if his image had suffered. The group took a path guided by Florissant through three hallways, up an elevator, across two more hallways, and into a secure room. Kenneth stripped off his coat and felt his shoulders sigh, their burden now lifted. At least the heater worked even if Ohio's weather did not understand that winter was supposed to end soon.

"Thank you, Agent Rover," Sandra said. "Have the men secure this floor."

"Yes, ma'am," Rover replied before issuing orders to various agents in the room. She left with a wiry male agent whose name Kenneth could not remember. His name might as well be Agent 7 for all the President cared. Only Florissant remained in the room.

"They seem high-strung," Kenneth commented.

"That's their job," Sandra explained in an almost condescending tone. "If they weren't David would have been killed before he even made it into office, and Charles Logan would have gotten away with murder."

Kenneth considered the statement. Sandra may not have been the most pleasant woman to be around, but at least she understood how everything worked in this office. That had been the reason he appointed her to this office. He did not need a nice person, after all. There were plenty of nice people who answered phones for the White House. What he needed was an intelligent, blunt person who could work well under pressure. Sandra was just the right person.

A ringing telephone interrupted their thoughts. Sandra answered, "Hello? Who is speaking?" There was brief silence in the room as Kenneth wondered who was at the other end of the conversation. "Yes. Patch him through. Mr. President, you'll need to take this."

"Who…"

"It's the terrorist. He wants to speak."

"Is the call being tracked?" Kenneth asked hesitantly.

"They tried, but he's using some sort of device that makes it look like he's calling from eight locations at once."

"Then why should I talk to him?" Kenneth asked. It seemed like a good question to him, but Sandra gave him a scathing look.

"He'll only talk to you. If we find out what he wants, then we might be able to stop him."

Grudgingly, Kenneth took the phone from her hands and placed it to his ear. "This is the President. Who are you?"

"My name is not important, Mr. President. All you need to know is that I am in possession of various incendiary devices including nukes. I am prepared to use them if my demands are ignored or if your voice is not agreeable. Do we have an understanding?"

"We do. What do you want?"

"What do I want? What a can of worms you open straight away! My first demand is a test. You obey it, and no one dies. Disobey, and you will see nine explosions dot the city of Los Angeles."

"You do understand that America has the policy of not negotiating with terrorists, right?"

The voice at the other end laughed as if he had been watching Monty Python's Flying Circus. "You would die of shock if I named every time one of your predecessors negotiated with terrorists. Even your charming chief of staff knows that both her brothers compromised when it suited them. You now take orders from me."

"I don't think so," Kenneth defied.

"This is your only warning. Use that tone again and your cartographers will never write Los Angeles on a map again."

"Then what is your demand?"

"I want you to divert all satellites right now. Have them take pictures of Ontario."

"Why?"

"Because I ordered it and you do not want me to kill your innocent citizens."

The sound on the phone suddenly went dead and a dial tone hummed. Kenneth fumed at the terrorist's arrogance, but he had no idea how he should react. Nine explosions had been the threat for noncompliance. That could mean mass deaths. After having such a horrible morning, he did not want the American people to blame him for something even worse. With that, he made his decision. "Sandra, have all satellites diverted to Ontario."

"What did he say?" she asked. "Is he in Canada?"

"Just do it!" he yelled, frustrated that a terrorist had treated him like a disobedient child.

Sandra immediately made the call. After finishing, she tried asking what exactly had been said, but Kenneth refused to open his mouth. He was the President, and his own staff should not question his judgment.

Detective Travis Marks

The new rebellious streak that Wes had suddenly developed was refreshing. Ordinarily, Travis could not stand being around his partner and the fence post stuck up his ass. Now things were running smoothly. Wes had explained that an anonymous caller had sighted the large red van that witnesses had reported seeing around the time Dr. Gomez disappeared. The caller had given them an address in the warehouse district, and now they were just a few minutes away based on Siri's guidance.

As the black Buick approached their destination, Travis felt a twist in his gut as he remembered previous trips to similar warehouses. A suspect would usually run, he would give chase, and someone would start shooting. It was an annoying pattern, but at least it led to him drawing his weapon. Now that idiots posted embarrassing videos of cops whenever they fired a shot, internal affairs would grill them whenever officers discharged their gun. _Why didn't you try tazing the suspect instead?_ Travis had been asked once. Those people annoyed him to no end.

"There it is," Wes said, pointing at the red van. It was a Ford E450 with windows tinted so much that no one could see inside. In Travis' opinion, windows that dark were practically a sign that said, "I'm a bad guy! Come arrest me if you dare!"

The invitation brought another smile to Travis as he imagined taking down the punk responsible for this vehicle. Wes naturally ended the moment with a plan more complex than necessary. He wanted to set up a system of hand signals and bird calls for communication. At least that was how Travis interpreted the boring speech. "How about this," Travis interrupted. "We go in and ask whose van that is."

"That's what I just said," Wes objected. "Perhaps a little over-simplified but-"

"Great! Let's go," Travis said triumphantly. He opened the car, jumped out, and slammed the door in one fluid movement. He was already halfway to the door by the time Wes unbuckled himself. The pasty white blond panted as he finally caught up with Travis. Detective Marks hated it when his partner harped on being on time when he could not adapt to a change of pace. _It's selfish,_ he decided.

Travis rapped his wrist against a metal door and yelled, "Candy gram!"

"This is private property!" responded a gravelly voice.

"LAPD!" Wes put in, ruining what Travis had in mind. "Open up."

The two ducked for cover as they heard a machine gun rip holes in the metal door just over their heads. Had they been taller, Wes and Travis would each have a brand new third eye. Travis hid behind a palate of sheet metal while Wes ended up by a John Deere tractor at the other side of the building. So far, this confrontation was not going according to Travis' usual pattern.

"You think we're at the right house?" Travis asked jokingly.

"No shit!" Wes replied, obviously not amused.

"What do we do now?" Travis yelled over the continuing spread of gunfire.

"This was your plan!" Wes screamed back.

"My plan?" Travis said. "What're you talking about? You were the one blabbing on about a tripwire and-"

"I never said anything about a tripwire! Don't you ever listen to me?"

"No!"

The machine gun stopped its abuse on the door, and they heard a door within the building. Travis, seeing that Wes had not registered the sound, sprang into action. He ripped open what was left of the bullet-hole door. Inside were several crates, all of them with Spanish labels. It was all gibberish to him since he only spoke English and…English. There had been no use for a foreign language when he went through high school, so he just flirted in the back of his French classes.

A door at the far end of the room opened, revealing a woman with long brown locks and dark eyes. Travis' first instinct was to hit on the young woman, but the current situation required more perception. When she pulled out a shotgun, Travis froze in place. Time slowed considerably as the detective took in so much information. Wes stormed into the building, holding his issued weapon elevated. The woman's shotgun emitted a loud sound and a bright flash. Travis felt an intense pain in his right leg just below the knee. It was pain like he had never felt before. It was as though the leg had been swept from under him. Down he went. His face collided with the cement floor. Travis cried out. Several men entered from behind the woman and Wes as if they had waited for them to enter the room.

"Drop it or he dies!" The woman said calmly, pointing her gun at Travis' head.

Wes turned to look at his partner. Travis appreciated the concerned, fearful look on the other detective's face. Within a moment, Wes' gun had fallen to the floor, clanking as it went. Wes then kicked it toward the mysterious, antagonistic woman. _I'll bet she'd be fun in the sa- No, Travis! I need to think seriously here._

"Put him in the crate, Garcia!" the woman ordered.

A large Hispanic man pistol-whipped Wes. Travis watched in horror as his partner fell into the criminal's hands. Garcia dragged the body to a casket-sized crate without effort and unceremoniously dropped his load into the wooden box. Travis tried crawling forward in the hopes of retrieving his partner's gun, but his face became acquainted with a steel-tipped boot. It was hardly the start of a beautiful friendship.


	3. 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

Chapter 3

Agent Cole Ortiz

Already halfway through the journey to Los Angeles, Cole shifted about in his seat. They had passed through momentary turbulence fifteen minutes before, and the sudden feeling of falling left the CTU agent with an alarming sense of disquiet. Chasing terrorists through the streets of New York was nothing. Sitting on a plane with nothing to do put pray the fragile craft did not break apart was nerve-wracking. Not for the first time, Cole asked himself what he was doing on this plane. As far as he was concerned, it was a death trap into which he had walked willingly. People do not get much more stupid than that.

Bernard seemed to be enjoying the ride. With each bump in the flight, he would talk at great length about the spherical make-up of Earth and how the geometry and meteorology all worked together. This talk did little more than disturb Cole's calm even further. If there was anything worse than being at such a great height, it had to be knowing the scientific reasons why it could kill. Only a phone call from Agent Pilfer of the NSA provided the peace Cole desired. Pilfer delivered no good news, which abruptly destroyed Cole's relaxed posture.

"What do you mean the satellites have been diverted?" The incident was clearly not Pilfer's fault, but a sudden rash of anger still used him as an outlet. "We need those satellites, so get them back!"

"I can't, Agent Ortiz," Pilfer replied in a voice that was hardly reassuring. "That's what I was trying to tell you. We no longer have control."

"Why? Was there some kind of computer glitch?"

"No. Everything is now focused on Ontario."

_That's a random place for satellite diversion. Whoever did that is a moron._ Cole asked, "Who ordered the change?"

"President Smith. He had one of his people call down about twenty-five minutes ago. It was an executive order, so our boys followed through immediately. Sorry."

"Thanks, but that really doesn't do me any good," Cole angrily closed his flip-phone and considered bashing open the window to his left with the cellular device. "Dammit!"

"What's wrong?" Bernard asked.

"The President's being a real pain in the ass right now. He screwed us on satellites. Now they're all pointed at Canada where nothing ever happens."

"Hey! I was born in Newfoundland!" Adam objected.

"Shut up, McQueen!" Cole screamed. "No one cares if you're a descendant of the Vikings."

"Vikings never settled in Newfoundland. They raided villages along the coast, but-"

"I thought you were Scottish-"

"Does any of this even matter-"

"Everyone…just…stop…talking!" At once, all the CTU agents present silenced themselves. An irate Cole was not someone they met often, but they knew well enough that seeing that version of Ortiz was never a good sign. Cole drank in the quiet as he inhaled and felt control return to him. He could think again, which was an absolute necessity for someone in his position. "I need to contact Chloe. She'll be able to handle the President's insanity. I've seen her do it before."

Bernard took the opportunity to call the boss on Cole's behalf and then handed the phone over. Cole allowed the ringing in his ear to sooth his ferocity. It was a pleasant if repetitive noise. Then Chloe answered on her end. "Chloe O'Brian."

"Hey, Chloe, I need your help on something," Cole opened.

"Already? You haven't even landed yet."

"It's the President. He ordered all satellites to look at Ontario. We need those satellites."

"Great, Cole," she replied with her usual snarky tone. "I've got a lot of things on my plate too, ya know? Can't you deal with this on your own?"

"Chloe, I would, but I have a tendency to have no patience for morons in office."

"And you think I like dealing with that?"

Cole faltered, "Well…no. But you do it well anyway. I'd just piss off the guy instead of getting him to my side."

After a few seconds of silence, Chloe replied, "Fine. I'll do it. Just do what you can without the satellites for a while."

Detective Travis Marks

Throbbing pain in the head and leg greeted Travis as he woke up. He lay on the same floor where he had unintentionally fallen asleep. The steel-tipped boot must have left an ugly dent in his head the way Travis' face felt. He tried picking himself up, but a sharp stabbing in his leg reminded Travis of the bullet. He looked down to examine the injury. The bullet had made holes on both sides of his leg, so at least it had not lodged against his bone. Blood was still leaking from the wound, but it was clotting. More good news…though it did not make the pain go away. Upon removing his belt, he tightened it around his leg just above the abrasion. He would have done it sooner, but unconsciousness was a good excuse in Travis' book.

Satisfied that he had tended to his wound adequately, Travis pulled out his cell phone and called Captain Sutton. After explaining the situation, he waited patiently as the Captain fumed over the blatant disregard for protocol and disrespect toward authority. It went on for some time, but Travis did not bother listening. He had heard the same type of speech from every foster parent he had ever been with. They did not like his process of dealing with their commands, and it was tiresome listening to bull that would not matter in a few days anyway. He'd grunt a few times if the speaker stopped for verification that Travis understood, and then the conversation would end. Grunts did not end this conversation.

"I can't believe Wes went along with this half-assed plan. I wanna talk to him right now!" Captain Sutton ordered.

Wes! Waking up to pain had driven all thought of his partner away. Come to think of it, he had not seen Wes since Garcia put him in the crate. He searched the warehouse for any sign that Wes could still be there. The many crates that had been scattered throughout the room were all gone. After calling out for his friend, Travis felt something that rarely touched him: panic. His breaths were more difficult and closer together. He was about to hyperventilate.

"Are you there, Wes?" came Captain Sutton's muffled voice. "When I get through with you, you'll wish you stayed in that attorney's office!"

"Wes isn't here, Captain," Travis muttered, hardly believing the words as he spoke them.

"What do you mean he's not there?" the captain demanded, having forgotten every calming technique Dr. Ryan had ever taught him. "You went in with your partner. Where is he?"

"I think the hot femme fatale and Nacho Libre took him along with all their stuff," Travis speculated.

"Stay where you are. I'll call CTU and find out what they can do for us."

With that, Captain Sutton left Travis alone in the musty warehouse with naught but spiders to keep him company. _Stay where you are? To hell with that!_ If Wes could possibly be nearby, Travis was going to find him. Slowly picking himself up, he felt the bullet hole scream at him for ignoring its presence. Through sheer force of will, Travis pressed on with small, determined steps. Nothing in the verse could stop him from searching the entire warehouse until he found his partner. They might rile each other over stupid things or make bets while in couple's therapy, but none of the bickering mattered. Travis loved Wes like a brother. Brothers never leave each other to psychos with guns.

Step after step, Travis drew nearer to the door behind which the shooting maniac had first made her appearance. Opened the heavy door proved more straining than he had expected. He could feel his pulse in his bullet wound. Behind the door, Travis found a vast room empty except for a wooden crate exactly the shape and size of the one Garcia had used as human storage earlier. _It's got to be him! _Travis thought, excited. A sudden bleak thought followed. _What if they killed him?_ Travis could not dwell on the thought long before his cell phone went off. It was a number Travis had never seen before, but a nagging voice in his head told him to answer anyway.

"Detective Marks, what the hell are you doing? I gave your entire city's police department to work on tracking down terrorists, and what do you do? You keep investigating an unrelated case just to tick me off."

"It's lovely to hear your voice to, sir. I'm Travis. I like women, booze, and motorcycles."

"You need to be a little more respectful right now," replied an obviously fake New York accent. "From what I've been told, you need us to find your partner."

"I think I just found him," Travis replied. "There's a crate in here that-"

"Don't open that crate!" yelled the voice. "One of my colleagues just told me that your address was one of the possible weapon stockpiles we were looking for. If you open it, it could be a bomb."

"So what you're telling me is that by disobeying your orders, Wes and I found you guys a lead?"

"I wouldn't put it like that…"

Under normal circumstances, Travis would celebrate with an exaggerated victory dance just to annoy the other person. For that to work, though, the other person had to be within view. Plus the fear that Wes could be dead and a bullet hole in his leg diminished any desire to bust a move. These thoughts were interrupted by a sudden groan. It sounded as though it came from the crate. _It is Wes! He's alive!_

"Whatever you do, wait for the bomb squad to get there," the voice ordered. "Do you understand me?"

"I can't do that," Travis responded defiantly. "Wes is in the crate. I'm opening it."

Travis ended the call despite cries of protest from the faux New Yorker at the other end. Each step toward the box caused agony, but the detective's adrenaline kicked in, allowing him to ignore the blood trickling down his sock and dripping to the cement. Just a few more feet and his partner would be free. They could laugh all about their mistake and have a few beers because Wes was going to be just fine. With bare hands, Travis attacked the nailed-down lid and called out to his friend, "Everything's gonna be okay! I've got you man!"

Amazingly, the wooden lid came off easily thanks to Travis' resolve. He smiled as he looked down to see his friend. _Who's that?_ Travis wondered as a very different person occupied the now-battered crate. Inside, a bound and gagged Latino man in his late twenties or early thirties looked up with hope-filled eyes. The young man had been punched in the left eye, swelling purple skin over his beady black eyes. He would have looked like a fit model if not for ripped clothing and signs of starvation. Travis removed the cloth stuffed into the captive's mouth.

"Thanks!" he gasped in a voice that indicated a dry throat. "I'm Ricardo Gomez."

Detective Wes Mitchell

"Darling, wake up!" said a sweet, feminine voice.

Wes immediately knew that everything from the shootout to the pistol-whipping had just been a nightmare. So had the divorce and couple's therapy with Travis. He was back in bed with Alex. He whispered her name, "Alex, it's too early."

A rough hand gripped him by the short hairs on his head and shook him awake. "Alex? So was that his name?" mocked the same voice, now dropping the friendly tone.

Eyes opening at last, Wes found himself staring at the woman who had shot his partner. It seemed that she was in charge of the operation. Everything from her shapely brown hair, mascara, heels, and form-fitting dress to her domineering posture let Wes know that she liked to see men in submission to her. Without her heels, the woman would be just 5 feet and a few more inches, but the shoes in combination with his sitting down made her look like a giant. The pantyhose running up her legs almost hid several scars where blades or similar sharp objects had pierced the skin.

"You!" he exclaimed stupidly. He paid for the comment with a punch to his left jaw. For a woman her size, she had plenty of power.

"That didn't answer my question. Was Alex his name?" she smiled as she drew back for another swing.

Wes tried to return the favor, only to find out that his arms and legs were securely bound to a metal chair anchored to the floor of a large vehicle. "No," Wes conceded. "Alex is my ex-wife."

"Ah," she surmised. "With your silky shirts and the way you looked at that man on the floor, I assumed you were lovers."

"Dammit! Why does everyone assume that we're g-"

Wham! The torturous female hit the other side of his jaw. "I ask the questions here, alright, sweetie? You answer questions correctly or I start using a few volts of electricity on you. Who sent you to the warehouse?"

Wes recoiled at the sight of two electrodes covered by wet rags, sparks flying as the woman tapped the two together. "N-no one. We were just investigating a kidnapping."

"Really?"

"Yes. I'm just a detective trying to solve a case." ZZ! The electrodes touched either side of Wes' neck. He screamed for mercy. He had not been in so much pain since the time his father pulled a rusty nail out of his foot when Wes was eight years old. "What are you doing? I answered your question!"

"Oops," she said, as if that would be enough to fix the problem. "Did I forget to tell you my other rule? I don't like boring answers. So on to the second round! What do you know about operation Krill?"

"Nothing!" Wes immediately yelled. ZZ!

"Mr. Detective, I don't like hurting you," she said with a condescending voice that told Wes just the opposite. "All I want is a teensy bit of information."

Wes felt tears forming at his ducts. He did not want to show weakness, but every new hurt stole away his will to fight against this horrible woman. At last, he searched for an answer she might accept, even though he truly knew nothing. "Operation Krill is your effort to repopulate the oceans with whales, right? You genetically create krill for the express purpose of feeding their dwindling their numbers."

The woman tapped the electrodes together and laughed as she watched Wes squirm. "You really do have no idea, do you?" She ran a finger along his left bicep as if trying to be seductive. Before Wes could react to this new stimulus, she dug a long fingernail into the thickest part of his upper arm, drawing blood in seconds. He gasped and tried to avoid biting his tongue. "You're just too cute, Mr. Detective. It's almost like you've never been tortured before."

"You grabbed the wrong cop," Wes replied, trying to brush off the pain as he would a sprinkling of dust. "My partner's the one who's into S&M."

She threw back her head and let out an incredulous laugh. She turned off the motor running the electrodes and set them aside. In their place, the woman now held a large piece of glass with various sharp ends. Each edge looked to have a different thickness. "Are you familiar with the interrogation process of the Koreans?" she asked.

Wes did not take his eyes off the glass. "N-no…"

"Neither am I!" she giggled. "You wouldn't believe how much fun it is to invent your own method. There's a lot of trial and error involved, but you never get the satisfaction you want unless you try things out for yourself. Otherwise you feel like you're putting a recipe together out of someone else's cookbook. I hate cooking. This shard, for instance, is in its beta testing. I don't know how well it works, but I'd love to find out. So tell be more about this Alex you mentioned."

President Kenneth Smith

"I'm not going to give up until you tell me exactly what that bastard said to you!" Sandra yelled. Her infuriating meddling grated on Kenneth's nerves.

"Fine!" he yelled at her, completely ignoring Florissant's constant presence. "He told me that he would use bombs on Los Angeles unless I ordered the satellite diversion. What more do you want from me, woman?"

"So you just followed his orders?"

"You make it sound like it was an easy choice for me," the President accused.

"Damn right I am!" Sandra countered. "You were barely on the phone with that maniac and then you parrot his orders without a second thought."

"What was I supposed to do?"

"Consult me! I am your chief of staff. That's supposed to mean something. You've got a whole cabinet to help you make tough decisions. I swear, it's almost like you fell asleep in civics class and only paid attention to media obsessed bloodsuckers like Blagojovich parading themselves through every last scandal just for a chance to appear on the evening news. I am telling you now…they are not role models for this office."

The woman pointing fingers at him was being totally unfair in Kenneth's opinion. He may have had little experience in Congress before campaigning for Presidency, but he had served on several committees before. When it came to dealing with domestic affairs like healthcare and tax theory, he could feel the American people's pulse and knew exactly how to vote. The people wanted the rich to pay more taxes? He voted for it. After living near snotty financial successes all his life, he agreed that it was their turn to pay the bill for the American people. When it came to any decision, he knew exactly what the people wanted. In this case, he knew that Americans in Los Angeles would not want to die over some silly satellite positioning, so he changed it for those American lives. Sandra would never understand that.

Before the President could fire back a rebuttal, the room's telephone rang. Kenneth picked it up before Sandra could reach it. "This is the President," he introduced himself.

"Mr. President, that same caller is on the line. Should I patch him through?" asked a nasally man, no doubt sitting at a desk and playing Galaga.

"Yes."

"Just a moment."

Kenneth raised his index finger to Sandra just as she tried to say something to him. She grudgingly clamped her mouth. Moments later, the same disguised voice from earlier spoke up. "I have confirmed that you passed my test. Excellent. Most excellent. Now I have another assignment for you."

"Go on," Kenneth replied without venting his frustration. One wrong tone and the terrorist would commit an atrocity against Los Angeles.

"I want you to set up a press conference within the next ten minutes."

"And what should I discuss?" Kenneth asked, wondering how this enemy would prolong this manipulative relationship.

"Something that will make your Hispanic voters very happy. You will be granting amnesty to every citizen commonly called an illegal alien."

Kenneth could not believe his ears. This man, whoever he was, just ordered him to commit political suicide. Only extreme liberals favored that move. Everyone else would claim that he had weakened the infrastructure of America if he obeyed the terrorist's demands. After all the mistakes the President had already made today, he was unwilling to make another. "Well that's not gonna happen."

"You sadden me, Mr. President. And here I thought we were getting along swimmingly. Prepare for a demonstration of my abilities. You will see the result of your refusal by the end of the hour."

Agent Bernard Carlson

The airplane's descent felt exhilarating, like going over a hill on a rollercoaster. The landing gears made their noise as they locked into place. Before he knew it, the plane touched solid Earth. Upon looking at his training officer's green face and extreme grip on the arm rests, Bernard had a feeling that this flight had not been enjoyable for Cole. Had there been other signals? _Maybe he just needs a little confidence boost._

"Don't worry Cole. We've got 10,000 feet of runway. That's more than enough distance for this plane to stop."

"Not helping." Cole muttered behind gritting teeth.

Traversing the runway took mere seconds as the pilot applied the brake. "See? Nothing to it."

Cole growled his disapproval. Saved by the bell, Bernard answered his phone before it could finish playing the same tune it had played eighty times that hour. "Agent Pilfer, what do you have for us?"

The NSA agent always sounded like an insecure mouse trying to hold off a bathroom trip. "We just spotted a red van matching Detective Marks' description through traffic cams. It's about a fifteen minute drive from the airport. Would you like to pursue it, or-"

"Just a moment," Bernard said, cutting off the other man. After explaining the situation to Cole, he asked, "Did you want to rest a few minutes or go after the van?"

"I don't need a rest!" Cole objected. "I just need to get off this damn deathtrap."

With that, Bernard's superior officer stormed away from his seat, ready to vacate the craft as soon as the door opened. Bernard let the NSA agent know that CTU would take point on the chase.

Mandy

The puny homicide detective had made for excellent sport. He squealed and squirmed whenever she moved her tool of choice. As it turned out, the glass shard had been useful beyond her wildest dreams. She looked down on her captive as he bled from multiple locations. He no longer demonstrated the same spirit he once had. Now she knew that she had owned him. It was more pleasurable than an orgasm. Mandy buttoned a new shirt over her clothes and examined herself in a mirror. She looked just like a postal worker.

"So tell me, Wesley, how do I look?" Mandy asked, holding the shard in plain view.

"Like a descendant of the devil," he replied in a voice, not quite caring about the situation. Her slashing punishment met with no surprise. Mandy sighed as she realized her new toy had broken from his many lashings.

After picking up a small box, she exited the red full-sized van and approached a gorgeous house. The lawn had been meticulously groomed, and every bit of the curb appeal showed long hours of care. It might even make for a decent place to live. Mandy did not care for such trivial things. Houses were just places to eat, sleep, and burn. Even as a child, her mother never bothered to put down roots longer than three or four months. The sudden change of scenery had been unstable for her, but that hardly mattered to her now. Looking back, it all felt like prep work for her career.

She rang the doorbell and met with a kind-faced woman. She had beautiful black hair that barely touched her shoulders. Her eyes were unsuspicious blue, matching her blouse. Her features were nothing special in Mandy's opinion, but perhaps she looked better without the blouse and suit pants. Mandy greeted her and asked for her signature in exchange for a package. The woman appeared flustered by the unexpected delivery, but she signed for it without a fuss. Once Mandy finalized the exchange, she walked back to the van.

"Take a look at this delectable scene of domesticity, Wesley," she ordered after opening the van's back door. He seemed to have trouble focusing no thanks to the sudden burst of light attacking his pupils. "Does any of this look familiar?"

He finally noticed the house. His eyes widened. He tried to shout a warning. _Thank God for duct tape,_ Mandy thought to herself. She looked down at the ledger where the unsuspecting woman had signed her name "Alexandra MacFarland."

"I want you to see this, Wesley," she told him while producing a thin cylinder from her pocket. She pressed down on a button and waited. It did not take long before the consequences of her action became apparent. The lovely house lost its shape in a brilliant burst of flame, sending out a wave of energy. Every bit of the structure was demolished, leaving no chance that the occupant was alive. "Thank you so much for answering all those questions for me."

Mandy chuckled at the sight of a grown man crying.


	4. 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Chapter 4

Sandra Palmer

When Sandra first hitched herself to the Smith campaign during the primaries last year, she had the notion that Kenneth was a reasonable politician with a good heart and intelligence aplenty. He was no David. That much was always clear. No one could ever match the impressive goodness her brother had possessed. The one thing Kenneth had over David: Smith had no one like Sherry in his life. Now that they could breathe easy with all the cutthroat campaigning behind them, she discovered that she may have made a mistake in joining forces with the man. All she could see now was a spineless man who ignored all his resources.

Her telephone rang out the tune "Taps" yet again. A desperate voice at the other end told her to turn on a television and watch any news station. Reaching for a remote, she complied before ending the call. The screen at first showed the Weather Channel. Instinctually, she typed in the channel number for Fox News Channel, but the screen showed Teletubbies instead of breaking stories. _Wrong state,_ she realized. After flipping through what seemed like eighty channels, Sandra found the news story her secretary had wanted her to see. She gasped at what the reporter was saying.

"…seeing nine distinct explosions all across the city. It would appear to be random targeting, but all explosions lit up the sky at the exact same moment. We still have no idea how many people died in this attack. But tragedy has definitely struck LA on this cold, winter morning. Here are just a few pictures of the carnage…"

Sandra wiped away a stray tear before marching out of the room, leaving the television to tell its grim story. Secret service agents stood at various defensible positions on either side of the hallways, providing visual sweeps of their zones. A few of these silent sentinels placed curious eyes on her as she strode towards the President's room. She hoped her expression possessed some semblance of ferocity. That had been the one face that could disarm both Wayne and David when they were children.

Upon reaching her destination, Sandra swung wide the door, stepped inside, and slammed it closed. Florissant reacted with a swift movement to his holster, but he released his grip once recognition took effect. Kenneth, on the other hand, did not look up from a file that must have been fascinating to him. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't slam doors, Sandra," the President said without lifting his eyes. "We're not in our own house, you know."

"Apologies, President Manners," she retorted more viciously than intended. "Our terrorist has struck Los Angeles."

"How bad is the damage?" he asked as if playing a game of Risk.

"Nine explosions destroyed several buildings across the city simultaneously," she answered. "We still don't know the death toll, but you'll need to address the nation about this."

"Nine explosions, you say?" Kenneth repeated. "You see, Sandra, this psycho means business when he makes a threat. I made concessions and you wigged out. Then I took the non-negotiations tactic that you and your dear brothers upheld so _easily_. Because of that, I am responsible for every death that resulted. You share that blame."

"Neither of us is at fault!" Sandra argued. "How can you even say that? The maniac who ordered the attack is."

"Then why the bloody hell are you angry with me?"

Sandra let out a low snarl. "You are such a narcissistic idiot, Kenny! As I told you earlier, I am here to help you. How can I do my job if you won't talk to me? It's the simple concept of communication that you just aren't getting."

"Don't call me Kenny! You know I hate it when people call me that."

"One: no I didn't. Two: did you just miss everything I was trying to say?"

"No," replied the President as he pouted. "You're treating me like a fuckin' high school dropout, and I don't care for it."

"I must have been so blind all this time. People tried to convince me that backing Tom Lennox was a better move, but I ignored them because you were supposed to be the democrat every person in this country would get excited about. And they did! They turned out to vote for you, a responsible, mature politician who shuns corruption. Now look at you! In just thirteen days, I don't even recognize you!"

Kenneth hated being on the defensive, as Sandra knew well from the many Presidential debates. At least he could recognize when he was beaten. "You're right, Sandra. I'm not ready to handle this crisis on my own. I just…I don't know…I don't like having to ask for help, even when I need it. I need it today more than ever, and I just keep pushing you away. Sorry."

"'Bout time…" said a voice from behind the two.

Sandra turned to see Florissant hiding a blush. In all their time together, Sandra had never heard the man speak. Now that he had, Sandra wished she had tried getting to know him. He sounded like a friendly sort with his slight drawl. The continuous staring from Sandra and Kenneth must have made the protector uncomfortable.

"Sorry," Florissant offered. "I'll give you two some privacy."

Without waiting for an answer, the agent left the room and waited outside. For a brief moment, she wondered what it would be like if a simple man like Florissant was President. She pushed it aside as she refocused on the conversation. "What do you need me to know?"

"The last demand that terrorist made was a strange one," Kenneth commented. "He wants me to grant illegals amnesty. That's a horrible move, I know. It would undermine our whole immigration process and allow criminals to pass through our boarders at any whim."

"This is good," Sandra commented.

"What is?"

"The demand," Sandra answered. "By telling you what he wants, he is telling you about himself. He wants amnesty for illegal immigrants. There are certain types of people who would benefit from that order."

"Right," the President said, now thinking through the situation. "He's a radical republican who wants me out of office!"

Sandra slapped her face. "No."

Kenneth furrowed his brow as he thought harder. Sandra half-expected to see smoke billowing from his ears. "Are you saying this guy is Hispanic?"

Agent Cole Ortiz

Driving fast cars had to be Cole's favorite part of the job. He never had to worry about speed limits or traffic signals so long as he could claim national security as an excuse. Now that he sat behind the wheel of a black Chevy Suburban. It was the newest and fastest model in production. Based on its superior handling, Cole guessed the NSA had done some fine tuning. He would prefer driving a slicker car like a 911 Turbo, but he did not mind so much if he scratched or dented an SUV during a high-speed chase. The machine was perfect for this task.

Using a government-issue SAT NAV, Cole could receive directions to the terrorist's vehicle directly from NSA. This type of technology would have been called science fiction a mere twenty years before. Now Cole marveled that law enforcement ever tracked down criminals without it. The traffic cam-informed screen showed his quarry on a digital map of the region as a green dot while his position appeared as a red triangle. As he depressed the accelerator, the red moved toward the green. Evidently, the terrorists did not suspect they had been spotted.

The Suburban zoomed past shopping plazas and suburb entrances. Miraculously, the traffic with which Cole contended was minimal. _If only New York City could be more like this,_ he thought. There had been numerous times that he had been forced to take alternate routes back home if traffic became too thick. Then he would have to rely on correctly positioned satellites to relocate the terrorists. At this point, he could not afford to have something like that go awry.

Five minutes later, Cole sighted his target. The red van's velocity seemed to imply that its driver would never break any traffic laws. That was something Cole detested about intelligent terrorists. They were always such law-abiding citizens who never raised anyone's suspicion. He could not even count the number of times terrorists had been caught just in the nick, but none of the neighbors could ever believe such a nice fellow had intended mass murder. One particularly brutal example of this tendency occurred just a few months ago. An unassuming woman had walked into a Broadway production of _Les Mis_, strapped with explosives. A security guard had detained her just before she could send all the theater patrons to an early grave. Cole remembered feeling sick to his stomach when all her acquaintances talked about how lovely she was and that she had never so much as shown up tardy to work in her life. It would be so much easier if terrorists respected no laws, for then they would be easy to spot.

When Cole pulled alongside the van, the driver finally showed signs of nerves. Perhaps it was the color of the Suburban. Perhaps it was just the Suburban. The driver seemed to know that Cole's SUV belonged to a government agency hunting him down. The van's tires squealed as its accelerator met with the floor. Cole's well-equipped SUV rose to the challenge without complaint of abuse. Before the vehicles could pass through the next intersection, Cole sped just ahead of the van and forced it into a ditch at the side of the road. The sudden impact killed the van's motor.

As with any lawbreaker, the terrorists within could choose to give up, flee, or fight. Cole counted three men and a giant leap from the rear and sprint away as fast as they could. Each carried a small hand gun. Cole guessed they would not hesitate to use said weapons unlike innocent bystanders. Cole radioed in the warning, hoping that police cruisers would be nearby to collect them. In the meantime, Cole and his team abandoned their vehicle and surrounded the van in case another passenger lay in wait.

His gun at the ready, Adam McQueen pulled open the right passenger door. BAM! After a gunshot, McQueen fell hard to the pavement. Cole had no time to wonder about the young man's health. A hostile had remained behind. "You've just made a grave mistake! You are completely surrounded. Step out of the vehicle now! Keep your hands where we can see them!" Cole repeated all the standard lines he had learned when it came to dealing with armed criminals.

A short woman with heals stepped from the vehicle, dragging a much taller man behind her. At first Cole wondered how the tiny female could have such influence over a larger man who obviously had some muscle mass. That was when he noticed all the cuts and bruises on the blond man. His pants were also stained where he had wet himself. Cole also noticed, most important of all, a shotgun in the woman's hand, and she was pointing it up into her hostage's chin. The tall, blond shook uncontrollably.

"Take one step toward me and this sorry excuse for a detective gets his!" the woman threatened.

"Just think about what you're doing," Cole warned. "There's nowhere you can go. What do you plan to do after you kill him? Huh? You think you can just run from this?"

"Shut up!" she screamed. "Put your weapons down now! Step away!"

At that moment, the blond lost consciousness. The sudden dead weight confused her just long enough for Cole to make his move. He knocked the weapon from her grip and restrained her. The hostage crumpled onto the road, but he did not matter for the moment. The woman struggled for release, kicking Cole in the gut. It was enough force to knock the wind out of him. Unintentionally, he let her go.

"Stop right there!" yelled Bernard.

"One more step and we will shoot you!" Lois added.

The woman examined both guns pointed at her before raising her arms in defeat. Cole regained composure, withdrew a ziptie, and restrained the woman's hands behind her back. "Get her out of here," he ordered Bernard. Several shots rang out nearby, all in quick succession. "Doris, go find out what happened. Lois, check on Adam."

Cole holstered his weapon and inhaled as if it had been his first breath. Now that he thought about it, he had not stopped to breathe since getting off the airplane. It had all happened so quickly. His fingers slowly combed through the black stubble atop his head. _What to do now?_ At any moment, he would probably have to rush to avert some other crisis. That is what happened when he last saw Jack Bauer. That man had been able to switch gears without hesitation, as if those circumstances were easier than putting up Christmas lights. Cole wished he could be more like Jack excepting the vigilante crap he occasionally pulled.

A slight movement on the ground heightened Cole's alertness. The blond on the road stirred and mumbled something. Cole knelt by the other man's side and tried reviving him. He lifted the other man into a sitting position, and the blond spluttered into consciousness. "Who… who are you?" he asked.

"Agent Cole Ortiz. I'm with CTU."

"Oh…great…I'm Detective Mitchell."

"We don't have any time to waste, Mitchell. We're out here because of you, so you'd better cooperate with us."

"Is my partner okay?" Wes asked, practically ignoring everything Cole had just said.

"He's fine. As I was just saying, we need to get you debriefed so that we can…"

"She's dead…"

"No. The woman who held you hostage is in custody."

"Alex is gone. She killed her."

Now Cole was frustrated. It was not enough for the LAPD detective to sidestep the important issues. He also had to ramble on about something Cole did not understand. Worst of all, the pronouns were horrendously juxtaposed. "LOIS!"

The ginger agent came into view with a sad expression. "Adam's gone. The shotgun tore through his arteries."

"Damn!" Cole exclaimed. "I need you to take Detective My-Way's statement and handle his debrief. I need to know what he knows about these terrorists quick. Be careful. I don't think he's entirely lucid."

"It looks like he'll need medical attention," Lois observed.

"After the debrief," Cole ordered before moving on to find Doris.

She had followed the sound of gunfire half a block away down a side street. Two squad cars formed a v, blocking off the escape route the four terrorists would have taken. All of them lay dead on the street, blood pooling underneath the bodies. One of the cruisers had been damaged with multiple bullet holes, and a police officer had also bitten a bullet. All things considered, the takedown had not gone well. Two friendlies were gone, and they only had one hostile to question.

"Doris! Make sure you send pictures of all the hostiles to Chloe."

"Will do."

CTU Director Chloe O'Brian

At this point in the day, Chloe hated the sound of a CTU ringtone. Why was it a standard issue sound? Who chose it? Chloe swore that if she ever found out who it was, she would kill him forty-seven different ways. On a day like today, a phone might ring right after the user had set it back down. People would even call each other inside the office. Chloe might have done that in her younger days, but now it all seemed so foolish and juvenile. About the only good thing the phones did for the office was prevent people from shirking their duties and playing a quick game of Pac-Man.

Dee-deep-bo-dee!

_GAAAAAAAAAAH!_ thought Chloe. "O'Brian."

"Chloe it's Doris. We just took down a group of terrorists. Only one hostile is still alive. We're sending you pictures of everyone."

"Great. I'll run facial recognition. Hopefully that'll give us some leads."

"And Chloe…"

"Yeah?"

"McQueen's dead."

"How?"

"The only female in the group, the one we captured, pulled a shotgun on him."

"Crap."

Chloe ended the conversation without any further pleasantries. The agents in Los Angeles had not seen nearly as much as she had even though she had always held an office job. Every field agent she met had told her that they hoped never to get so used to seeing friends die they stopped caring. Chloe did not dare tell them she was already there. If it was a close friend like Jack or Morris, she would be devastated, but Chloe could not afford to grow attached to anyone else. They all tended to meet a sticky end. Michelle Dessler. David Palmer. Bill Buchanan. Curtis Manning. Even Arlo Glass. She had dared to form meaningful relationships with all of them. Now their bodies filled coffins. How was she supposed to feel anything for some rookie who had brought her coffee maybe twice?

Chloe opened her CTU e-mail and looked through the message. She scrolled through each image, setting up the facial recognition software for each face. Last, she came to the woman's picture. _Oh, hell!_ She did not need facial recognition to know who this was. Without a second of hesitation, she dialed a number with her private cell phone. She did not want CTU to have a record of this call, though the analysts could track it down if they really wanted to.

"Hello?" said a voice at the other end.

"You're still in LA, right?"

"Chloe, I don't have time for…"

"And I don't have time to argue. Mandy is back. We need you."

"Where?"

"Go to the LAPD. I'll have a provisional field pass for you."

"I'll be there in twenty."

Chloe ended the call and immediately dialed Cole's phone. "Cole, it's Chloe. The hostile you have in custody is a mercenary known only as Mandy. A few years back, she worked for Habib Marwan and before that she tried to kill President Palmer. If she's involved, this is bigger than we thought. I called in someone to help."

"Who?" Cole asked.

"The only person we can trust right now," she replied.

Detective Wes Mitchell

Every inch of him felt like it had been stuffed in a paper shredder. Even sitting in the front of a well-cushioned SUV would not make the pain go away. He did not want it to go away. The pain was the only thing preventing Wes from focusing solely on the way he had let that monster murder Alex. If he had only listened to Captain Sutton, she would still be alive.

"Hi, I'm Lois Garfield, agent of CTU New York," a red head greeted as she stepped into the SUV. "I need to debrief you on what happened at the warehouse and everything afterwards. I'll be recording it all, so just start when you're ready."

Wes stared out the windshield. How could any of it matter now? Anything he said would just exacerbate his guilt. "Nothing I say will be useful," Wes declared.

Lois started the vehicle and started driving. "You may think that, but I've seen coworkers spin leads out of the smallest observations. It may seem like you're feeding us straw, but gold is sure to come out."

After taking a deep breath, Wes started. "Fine. You wanna know just how bad I screwed up today? Here goes. I was tired of getting priority shifts from federal agents. They always mess things up on a whim, no offense, and I didn't feel like warming up in the bullpen knowing that you guys would never let me play. So I decided to follow up on a lead my partner and I had for a missing persons case. Travis and I drove to the warehouse. We sustained fire. Travis went in without warning me and got shot in the leg from what I recall. I went in after to back up my partner but got whammied and trussed up in the back of the red van. I never heard any of my captors speak except the woman. She used several things to torture information out of me including, but not limited to, electrodes, her finger nails, a glass shard, and a sharpened bowie knife. They drove to my ex-wife's house and blew her up. Then, a few minutes later, you guys showed up and you know the rest. Not much to it, really."

"How did she know where to go to kill your ex-wife?" Lois asked.

That was the last question Wes wanted to consider at the moment. It was his worst failure connected to the whole affair. He wanted to divert attention away from the question by pointing out that Lois had mustard on her clothing or that she had turned down the wrong street. There was no reprieve in sight. Even worse, she re-asked the question when Wes did not answer.

"After the woman found out that I knew nothing about Operation Frill…or whatever it is she called it…she started asking me personal questions. She wanted to know who Alex is…was. I told her that she was…is…the only woman I've ever loved. I told her everything. About how we met in law school and fell in love while watching _Frasier_ reruns and eating pizza. I told her about our wedding and how we had so many wonderful days together, listening to smooth jazz."

"If it was all so wonderful, then why did you break it off?" Lois asked.

"How did you both know _I_ filed for-"

"Men are pigs," Lois interrupted. "If anyone's going to cheat in a relationship, it's the man. I've seen it happen so many times with my sister."

"I didn't cheat. I loved Alex too much."

"Then why?"

Wes hated this topic. The fact that he could end it in couple's therapy had always been comforting. Now that he was on the record, he felt that Alex deserved the truth. "I always told her that I thought she didn't support my career move to cop enough. She made it no secret that she went to bed each night afraid that I would never come home except in a body bag. But that was never the reason. I was just too embarrassed to admit it. I always wondered why she chose me out of all the other guys she dated. I was just a socially awkward jerk who happened to make her laugh. I just never felt…adequate for her. I wanted her to be with someone worthy of her, if you can understand that."

"That's stupid," Lois commented.

"I agree with you now. After all the couple's therapy I've had with Travis, I finally knew that I wanted to be with her. It took a whole lot of building up my self-esteem, but I convinced myself that she would never have married me if she was just settling. But I could never figure out a way to bring it up. Now I can't. Not ever. She's just gone."

Lois reached over and placed a consoling hand on Wes' shoulder. They remained silent the rest of the way.

President Kenneth Smith

Now that he and Sandra were on the same page, Kenneth felt much better about pursuing these terrorists. They had a plan, and the President intended to stick with it. He, Sandra, and Denise Pawkins, the head speechwriter, collaborated on a way to comply with the demands without actually making the declaration legally binding. It was tedious work, but if he let the women do most of the work, everyone was happier. Denise still seemed aggravated toward him for deviating from that morning's speech.

The telephone suddenly rang, and all three of them stopped in their tracks. Anyone watching a security screen would have thought it was a still image. Then Kenneth moved to the obnoxious noise and picked up the talking device. "President Smith speaking."

"Mr. President. You have seen what we can do, correct?"

"You've certainly got my attention."

"Good. Then can I assume you will be granting amnesty as I requested?"

"We have a press conference scheduled."

"Excellent. I have one more request to put to you. There is someone in prison. Someone I have worked with many times. Release him and deliver him to the place I designate or I will detonate a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles."


	5. Deleted Scenes

Deleted Scenes

7:00 AM – 8:00 AM: Kara Burret

If anyone was going to make a flub while at a press conference, every journalist in America dreamed it would be the President. They craved mistakes. It made them ravenous. Kara Burret was no different. She liked to think that she was more sympathetic, fair, and balanced than the bozos on liberal news stations, but moments like this caused her to forget all about her standards and leap for the jugular. So when her supervisor had asked who would cover President Kenneth Smith's victory tour across country, she snatched it up like a pelican catching fish in its bill. Perhaps she would catch a democrat making a compromising statement. Thirteen days into the tour, however, Kara felt disappointed. No one had need of a shoe in the mouth, and none of the politicians wanted to answer her questions either.

Now that President Smith made ready to deliver a speech to his Cleveland supporters, many of whom he had won thanks to his Vice President's residency, Kara suspected she would hear more of the same. All she could think to say in her summary of the victory tour was that the President had delayed assuming any Presidential duties in favor of massaging his already enormous ego. It would not be anything of substance or anything worthy of a journalist award.

She held out her digital recorder as Kenneth took to the stage. Rolling her eyes as the most powerful man in the world performed a series of self-worshiping fist pumps, Kara felt that her choice to volunteer for this assignment had been a mistake. She could have been in Hawaii covering the increasing number of shark sightings near popular beaches. Lynn Torrence looked to be having fun in England, covering the departure of that country's much-loved Prime Minister. All these feelings of regret and jealousy almost caused her to ignore the greatest words she would ever hear.

"…couldn't have done it without you!" the President cried out to the crowd with such enthusiasm, he prompted vehement cheering. "America has suffered from poor leadership the past four years. You know what I'm talking about. A corrupt President who covered up the truth and a spineless Vice President who pardoned her have both made America the laughing stock of the world. But I tell you now that America is back! Hayworth tried to buy your favor with empty promises, but America said no! I prayed to Vishnu every day that America would come to her senses, and he has answered my prayers! Bless you all…"

Kara could not believe her ears. Had the President really just said that? She tried to remember a previous time Kenneth had aligned himself with the Hindu religion, but nothing came to mind. In fact, she had always believed the man to be a Baptist. The President had, after all, made it a point to ask for his minister's endorsement. It seemed that all the other journalists in the crowd came to the same conclusion at the same time. Not one of them remained silent except Kara. They all wanted to clarify the President's words, but he took no notice, still plowing through his speech as if nothing outside the script mattered.

By the time Kenneth Smith finished his speech, several former supporters started chanting "Impeach Smith! Impeach Smith!" Impeachment sounded like a ridiculous demand considering the reason for the chant, but Kara did not care much about that. After watching the President's reactions, Kara had a feeling he did not even comprehend the words. He just held up his hands as if to declare himself the victor.

Kara walked toward the exit in the hopes of finding a quiet, secluded spot. She listened to the whole speech again and pulled out her cell phone once it ended. She dialed a number and said, "Donald, we've got ourselves the story of the year."

8:00 AM – 9:00 AM: Agent Debra Pilfer

Debra cracked her knuckles whenever she felt her fingers stiffen. As someone who sat at a computer most of the day coordinating NSA field teams, that happened quite often. More often than her neighbor, Josiah Balker, wanted to hear. After hanging up with a CTU agent from New York, Debra set about complying with the new orders. She requested satellite repositioning using priority clearance to move the request to the front of the line. She filed important documents into field agent briefs, expanded the NSA's bandwidth, and quarantined a malfunctioning kernel. After all that work, Debra felt her phalanges grow weary. Pop! Pa-pa-pop!

"Dammit, Debbie!" Josiah exclaimed. "That's disgusting."

"Sorry," she replied, not really meaning it. If she cared about what Josiah thought about her habits, she would have taken greater care to avoid relieving the pressure in her joints.

"I need help with this protocol. It doesn't seem to…"

"How long have you worked here, Josiah? Five days?"

"Three years," the data analyst replied, hanging his head.

"Then it shouldn't surprise you that you have to check the updates every hour for new encryption keys. Otherwise your protocols won't work."

"I'm sorry," he whined. "You make it all sound so simple."

"That's because it is," Debra replied with a haughty glower. "We've got a major terror threat today, and I can't do your work for you because I've got a whole mess of things Agent Carlson wants me to take care of. So either figure out how to do your job for once or I'll have Director Cross replace you."

Debra had no patience for ineptitude, and she believed that Josiah and so many other analysts under her command embodied the word. Computer code was all she understood. Explaining something as droll as protocols to a dweeb like Josiah only served to make her believe everyone in the world was slowly devolving into morons. They wanted technology to enrich their lives so long as they did not have to learn anything about what made their lives so pleasant. Even her eight year-old niece could have done better than the insipid idiots NSA had placed at her branch. Of course that was just one opinion.

Minutes later, her phone rang. She hastened to pick it up and said, "Pilfer. What do you want?"

"This is Sandra Palmer."

"Right," Debra replied. "And I'm a kleptomaniac."

"Just pay attention. Under the orders of the President, you are to reposition all satellites to Ontario."

"Why? CTU said they needed them to search for terrorists."

"These orders come straight from the President. Need I say more?"

Debra considered the question, tempted to reply in the affirmative. She thought better of it and said, "Okay. Any place specific you want me to check out?"

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM: Alex MacFarland

The doorbell rang. Alex, doe-eyed and excited, rushed to her estate's entryway, wondering who had dropped by on her day off. She opened the door and found herself staring at someone she did not expect. Dr. Emma Ryan had never before visited her house, and Alex had never expected to have that pleasure. Internally, she giggled at the thought of trying out her terrible British accent. _Fancy a cuppa tea? Or some crisps?_ That might offend her visitor, though, so she opened with the second thing that came to mind.

"Dr. Ryan? What are you doing here?"

Distraught eyes met Alex's as the blond therapist entered the abode. "I have some terrible news, Alex."

"What is it?" Alex asked, suddenly concerned.

"Won't you sit down?" Emma suggested.

That seemed ominous in Alex's opinion, but she complied with the suggestion. Only after sitting did Alex realize that the question had been more like an order repackaged into an unassuming request. _Therapists are manipulative,_ Wes would have said. "So," Alex said, "why all the drama?"

"It's Wes. He's been kidnapped by terrorists."

"What? How did that happen?"

"He and Travis were working a case in the warehouse district. There was a firefight in which Detective Marks suffered a wound, and the terrorists decided to take your ex-husband."

_No! This is impossible!_ None of it made any sense. Alex had known that Wes' job was potentially dangerous. That fact had led to the dissolution of their once happy marriage. She could never stomach the thought that Captain Sutton might one day walk through her entryway and hand her Wes' badge and comment on her husband's bravery before dying on the line of duty. Somehow this felt so much worse.

"This is all your fault!" Alex snarled.

"Pardon?" Emma said, taken aback.

"You and Captain Sutton wouldn't let them end their partnership like they wanted. No. You had to put them through couple's therapy knowing full well that Travis Marks is an irresponsible, womanizing pig who put my Wes through unnecessary risks every day. Wes begged for an end to it, but you just kept insisting on communication building and other therapy crap!"

"Alex, what you are feeling right now is perfectly normal, but your anger is misdirected. Wes chose to attend couple's therapy so he could stay with Travis."

Alex did not want to hear that. She gritted her teeth and screamed incoherently as tears rolled down her soft cheeks. "Get out!"

"I'm sorry that this has disappointed-"

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!"

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM: Vice President Austin Otler

Austin sat with head in his hands. News outlets all over the web, radio, and television mocked the new administration faster than they had done to any previous. Worst of all, Austin felt they deserved it. Kenneth's blunder had poisoned everything. Austin's mind saw his ambitions for future political prowess go the way of the dodo. Rubbing his shaved head, Austin felt the headache morph into a migraine. _Maybe I should have backed Tom Lennox in the primaries._

He lifted his head when the sound of expensive shoes on marble floor drew closer. "Richard!" Austin said after recognizing the friend. "What brings you here?"

Richard Wicker spoke with a voice deeper than any other man Austin knew. He should have been an auto insurance spokesman. "I'm sure that you are aware of President Smith's remarks this morning."

"Aware doesn't even begin to cover it," Austin replied. "Still in shock might suit me better."

The Secretary of Agriculture chuckled nervously. "What you may not know is that he has been contacted by a terrorist multiple times within the past four hours."

"WHAT?"

"Sandra just called me about it half an hour ago," Richard explained.

"She called you but not me?" Austin cried out. "Why would she do that?"

"That doesn't matter right now. What you should know is that President Smith has already given in to terrorist demands, which resulted in a situation that got two police officers and one CTU agent killed."

"That's horrible. But what are we supposed to do about it? They haven't even contacted us for assistance."

Richard straightened himself before replying. "It is evident to me and other members of the cabinet that the President is handling this crisis poorly and needs to hand it over to someone with more experience."

"How are we supposed to do that, Richard? He's the President of the United States."

"What do you know about the 25th Amendment?"


	6. 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Chapter 5

Detective Travis Marks

"How are you feeling?" asked Nora Scott as she passed by. It was obvious from her gait that she had no interest in hearing an answer. She probably just wanted to go through the expected motions colleagues are supposed to follow when trauma occurs. Nevertheless, Nora awaited a response with her head cocked to the side, ponytail swaying, and smile hidden by lip-biting teeth.

Travis wanted to say, _Like I've got a damn hole in my leg!_ That would not do. Captain Sutton had already fussed over him taking the rest of the day off and staying in the hospital, but the human gourd relented once Travis promised he could make a difference in the investigation. Accepting care for the wound had taken up enough time that he would not get back. He tried one of Dr. Ryan's relaxed breathing exercises before realizing Nora continued to stare at him. _Fuck it,_ he decided. "Like I've got a big ass hole in my leg!"

Nora sheepishly ducked at retreated. A few nearby detectives and other people, whose jobs Travis did not care to understand, stopped what they were doing and watched for any further curious behavior from the resident womanizer. A ceramic mug with dregs of coffee shattered as it hit the floor. Of the two of them, people at the station fully expected Wes to go postal on a coworker, so any yelling from him seemed normal. Travis, on the other hand, had the reputation of being calm at all times. He liked to tease Wes about how having sex every night gave him this demeanor, but the truth was he had always been laid back. There had never been a reason to lose his calm. So what if foster parents were strict? He would have a new set this time next year. Why bellyache over never going to the same school three years in a row? The less familiar he appeared to other kids, the more likely they would try befriending him. Very little ever caused Travis to abandon this attitude. Today, every cop in the division would be glad of that.

"Travis! My office!" yelled Captain Sutton called out.

_Crap,_ thought Travis as he strode past rows of desks with a hospital-issue cane in hand. _Crap-crap-craaaaaap!_ All those nearby regarded him as they would an erupting volcano, though they seemed to have forgotten volcanoes were dangerous up close. Now that he thought about it, so did most people in disaster movies. They always stopped to take pictures up until the moment lava started eating away at their feet. Fortunately for these onlookers, Travis had already vented all his debris, making Nora the sole casualty.

Travis entered the Captain's office and coughed as the smog of incense filled his lungs. "Did any one of your mothers tell you it's rude to introduce yourself by coughing?" Sutton asked through the cinnamon scented haze. Evidently, the fire hazard did not impact this man the same way it did every other human in the state."I guess it isn't just you, though. I've had to tell every other cop to say hello and stop acting like a Neanderthal."

"You wanted to see me?" Travis said, hoping it would focus his boss's ricocheting mind. Captain Sutton replied only with a sigh. "Look, if it's about out there with Nora, I'll go apologize to her, but you can't send me home over this. I can't leave until I've done everything to get my partner back. You understand that, right? Don't ya?"

"CTU is bringing Detective Mitchell here as we speak," the captain said.

"Is my partner okay?" Travis asked, frantic.

"Apparently that's the first thing Wes asked when CTU recovered him from a van full of terrorists. The same thing verbatim, actually."

"Then he's alright!" Travis celebrated.

"No, Travis. I'm afraid he isn't."

Travis slumped into one of the two chairs positioned in front of Captain Sutton's desk. Were this a regular day, Wes would have sat next to him, readjusted his suit four times, and resumed bickering over something trivial. Now the relaxing chair felt like it had not bottom. He was sinking into fear and uncertainty. The metallic cane clattered on the floor after he lost his grip. _Dammit, Wes, you'd better make it back here alive!_

Captain Sutton continued his explanation after wiping his nose with a handkerchief and a snort. "You'll be sorry to hear that your partner's ex-wife has been murdered."

"Does Wes know?" Travis asked, still unsure whether to believe this dreadful report.

"They made him watch. It was one of his many tortures while a captive."

"Then why is he coming back here? He should be going to a hospital or a counselor or Dr. Ryan or…"

Captain Sutton held up his hand. Amazingly, it stopped Travis' babbling. "Under normal circumstances, I would have forced him and you to stay out of this office for a month for recovery time. As the irritating woman from CTU has informed me, we don't have the time to worry about 'trivial' things at the moment and we can't waste our resources."

"Resources? What am I? A friggin' stapler?" Travis hated it when feds took over investigations. To them, officers were simply assets who could be used toward completing a goal. The only good thing to come from federal interference, in Travis' experience, was the sex that came afterwards. Women from government agencies talked up their feminist views on the job, but they also tended to have little time for relationships. As usual, Travis took advantage of the situation, inserted innuendo into conversation, and had wild nights with government agents.

"Don't get upset with me!" rebutted Captain Sutton. "Didn't you see my air quotes? It was Chloe's word, not mine."

Travis abandoned the room and welcomed clean air into his lungs. The incense had defiled them too long. Now every oxygen molecule felt like a drug bringing relief. He slowly made his way toward the station's entrance and waited for his partner's return. Travis invested five minutes before Wes strode in with a freckle-faced vixen who Travis hoped would spend the night in his trailer. It was an immature fantasy, especially considering Wes' wellbeing should have been a higher priority.

Now that the two were together again, Travis had no idea what to say to his partner. Planning something out would have been a move Wes did, but it was a skill Travis had never attempted to master. Suddenly, the only words left for him were the ones Nora had used earlier. "How are you feeling?" he asked, regretting his lack of emotional depth the question offered. Either that was enough for Wes or it sounded more sincere from Travis' mouth. The blond detective immediately threw his arms around Travis and squeezed.

"Detective Mitchell," interrupted the CTU agent, "we need to finish going over your statement."

The goddess image Travis had set up for this stranger burned up in an instant. "What the hell is your problem? My partner should have some time to grieve on his own, not relive everything that's happened today."

"Travis, I appreciate what you're doing," Wes said as he backed away, "but I need to do this. If I'm not doing anything useful…if I'm not working to catch these guys, then I think I'll just fall apart. It doesn't make any sense, but I can't just sit around and feel sorry for myself. The day is far from over."

"What can I do?" Travis asked.

"Return my laptop to its virus-free status," Wes suggested. "I know you're the one who's been looking at those websites."

CTU Director Chloe O'Brian

_How many times should a woman visit the bathroom in one hour?_ Chloe had been watching Candice Worthington for a while now, and she kept abandoning her work station for a trip to the toilet. Back when Chloe was just an analyst assisting Jack Bauer when he decided to go rogue, she had gone to the bathroom so often, she could have set up a temporary work station in one of the stalls. The situation's familiarity set Chloe on edge. She was the CTU director now, so anything that goes wrong, from a faulty satellite to a mole within the agency, would be her fault by the government's reckoning. By the day's end, Chloe would probably be out of a job if the crisis progressed in its usual way. She had seen it happen to every CTU Director she had ever met starting with Tony Almeida. Now the head of logistics acted as though her body was a leaky water fountain.

Chloe made her stealthy approach to the lavatory, turning her head each time someone opened a door or answered a cell phone. She would not let some hair twirler bring an end to her career. Just as Chloe reached her destination, Candice opened the heavy blue door to the women's room, a bulky black book in hand.

"What were you doing in there?" Chloe demanded.

"Are you kidding?" Candice asked, apparently oblivious to Chloe's anxiety. "If you really want to know, I can write you a report."

"Candice, no one likes an attitude. Just cut the crap and tell me why you've been going in there so much today."

Candice pulled Chloe in close. She angrily whispered into Chloe's ear, "Forgive me for having a urinary tract infection. I've been taking pills for a few days, but I still have to go too often. Anything else you want to say?"

Chloe did not appreciate the insubordination and looked for a way to redirect the antagonistic tone. That was when she noticed the title of Candice's book. _The Manifesto_ looked to be several hundred pages and probably could become useful if the carrier wanted to bludgeon someone to death. "What the hell is that?"

"It's the logistics bible," Candice replied, pulling her hair behind her left ear.

"A logistics…what?"

"The word manifesto is supposed to be a pun. If you don't get it, then…I don't know what to tell you. I'm kinda backlogged right now, so either send me home or let me do my job."

Without waiting for an answer, Candice walked away, entirely sure her boss would not go with the former option. It was almost enough to make Chloe fire her out of spite. Tempting as that option seemed, her cell phone's ringtone distracted her musings. She expected to see Cole's or President Smith's number show up. All the chaos from the morning had temporarily driven any thought of a personal life from her mind.

"Morris, now's not a good time," she stated as a greeting.

"You don't know the half of it, love," Morris replied as if he had not heard his wife's urgency. "I got the call from Principal Lowe's secretary a minute ago. Horrible sore throat she had by the sound of it. Anyway, Prescott's sick with a flu strain that's been sapping the school of its students, so one of us needs to pick him up and drive to Dr. Pharmer's office."

"It'll have to be you, Morris. If you couldn't tell from what I told you at the start of our conversation, I don't have time for something like that. We're in the middle of a crisis."

Chloe could hear the disappointed sigh Morris always gave just before giving in to her needs. "How many times will you get away with that excuse, I wonder?"

"I'll call you later. I've got work to do."

Waiting for a farewell did not benefit Chloe, so she ended the call before Morris could waste more of her time with an "I love you" or some other cheesy wrap-up. She turned around to return to her office, but Warren Kemper had been standing right behind her. The fellow always looked so pale and out of breath, it felt like finding a zombie stalking her. She gasped, composed herself, and asked what he wanted.

"Sorry, Chloe. I just thought you'd want to know," Warren replied.

When Warren did not proceed, as he was want to do, Chloe prompted him. "Know _what_?"

"It's about the President."

He again took an unnecessary dramatic pause. "Dammit, Warren, I'm not telepathic like your favorite X-Man. Just tell me."

Warren looked down at the notepad in his hand as if he had forgotten the message. "He's set up a press conference that's happening in five minutes. He wouldn't say what it's about, but if he accidently leaks anything about our situation…"

"It'll cause a panic," Chloe agreed. "We need to prepare for whatever comes out his mouth right now. Get Sandra Palmer on the phone and ask her why the hell she isn't keeping us in the loop."

"Right away," Warren complied. He dashed off only for Hubert Carter to take his place. Chloe hated this job more than she could express. If one person had something important to relay, then so did everyone else in the building. She longed for simpler times when computers were her only trusted sources for news. She understood their code so well and they did not dawdle before giving her information.

President Kenneth Smith

It smelled of barbeque pork in the press conference hall. Kenneth could practically taste the meat and feel the sweet sauce trickle down his trachea. His stomach rumbled its rebellious intention to abandon the media in search of food. He frowned at the floor, knowing that any quest for pork could threaten so many American lives. The tense situation sent sweat drops down his back, making him feel even colder in the already wintry climate.

A nearby clock reminded him he would begin his political suicide in less than one minute. Until then, he busied himself with reading the speech Denise had written for the occasion. Were it not for the circumstances, Kenneth would have commended her for writing something so splendid in such a short time. Then again, he would not know an infinitive if it split right in front of him. All that mattered to him was the people's reaction to his statement. He liked making people happy. Causing joy or at least contentment for others made him feel as though he had accomplished something worthwhile. This would be the first time he knowingly and intentionally did the opposite.

"It's time, Mr. President," Florissant stated.

"Thank you," Kenneth tried to say, but it came out more like someone trying to speak Portuguese without any training. His heart hammered against his ribcage. He could feel his tongue going numb. Every instinct told him to shred the speech on the spot and use the press conference as a platform for explaining his religious beliefs. At least that _could_ lead to a positive outcome. His unwilling feet shuffled him forward to the stage. Maybe if he took long enough, the media reps would all go home and forget the whole thing.

"Damn," he whispered to himself. Camera lenses all pointed at him as he made his way toward the microphone at the stage's center. No one had abandoned the press conference. If anything, it seemed as though more had shown up than ever. He did not even bother to listen as Sandra announced there would be no time for questions. Once she stepped aside, every reporter in the room clamored for attention despite the Chief of Staff's announcement. Kenneth, however, paid them no heed. He could not. If he did not concentrate all his attention on reading his statement, he would have fled the scene.

At first, Kenneth said nothing. He stared out into the crowd, which had now become silent. He felt as if he were back in high school, giving his first speech. All his experience escaped him. How should he stand? Hands in the pockets were either really good or very bad, but he could not recall which. He cleared his throat. The sound seemed to linger in the quiet room. Off to the side, Sandra's cell phone vibrated; she vacated the room in order to manage that situation, leaving Kenneth all by himself. _Just breath_, he reminded himself.

"Good morning," he stated, though "afternoon" would have been more accurate. Somehow, giving this speech felt different from all the others he had ever given. He was not trying to win people over. He could only inform his people of a drastic change in policy. The only thing he could do was spin the story into a more positive light. "At this moment, there are nearly 15 million people in this nation who have no rights. They cannot legally obtain employment or provide for their families. As with all our ancestors, they came here with the hope of finding a better life. These people are labeled as 'illegals,' a word which causes Americans to see only a criminal rather than a person."

Kenneth paused to gauge his audience, but everyone seemed confused so far. Perhaps they had expected something related to the morning's controversy. He should have expected that. "As you are all no doubt aware, citizens of this great nation have debated what to do with these people for decades," he continued. Nervous reporters shifted when their President's voice cracked at the word "nation." "Today, I am pleased to announce that our country will no longer treat undocumented immigrants as if they were less than human. For the next week, and immigrant lacking proper papers can obtain a green card and amnesty from illegal entry provided they fill out a set of documents at a local city hall. My office will provide instructions to this end within the hour. Thank you."

Turning away from the press gave him a feeling of relief for the first time in his life. With this out of the way, he felt as though the day could not worsen. That feeling vanished once the press corps began yelling questions all at once. They sounded like an angry horde of buzzing bees attacking an intruder. He skulked off the stage, certain he would collapse. _What have I done?_ Florissant guided him back to the state capital building's safety. Once again, he mentally noted how comfortable this secret service agent empowered him. Everyone else would have tried comforting or attacking him with words about his actions. For now, what he needed was a silent but friendly presence.

Detective Wes Mitchell

The debrief had degraded into a macabre game of show-and-tell. As he described the way the strange woman had tortured him in the van, he pointed to a new bruise, burn, or cut. It reminded him of the scene in _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ in which Indiana Jones complains that every part of his body hurt. The only major difference was that he had no hope of a pretty girl kissing him in the spots which remained unscathed and there were no NAZIs chasing him.

Even worse that exposing his signs of weakness to a stranger, Agent Garfield had taken it upon herself to show her own scars from previous missions or parental abuse. It was a kind gesture, but Wes only felt worse that he could not have been there for Lois when the injuries occurred. One particularly nasty gash in her back drew his attention. "That is from the time when I was six. I snuck an extra cookie for dessert and accidentally knocked over my dad's bottle of beer. It shattered into a million pieces, so my dad used one of them to remind me not to be so careless. I can still remember to smell of the wasted alcohol on the floor. Mom made me clean it up before she would bandage my cut. When it got infected, the doctor asked me how it happened."

"So you told them the truth, right?" Wes assumed hopefully. "The doctor called social services and got you the hell outta there."

Lois snorted. "I wish. Mom and dad scared me so much, but telling on them scared me more. What if they hurt me again? So I lied. I told the nice doctor that I had cut myself on barbed wire, he gave me some antibiotics, and I never saw him again. I went back to the hospital so many times with broken fingers here and concussions there that I got really good at lying to the doctors. And they all bought my lies."

"Then how did you, you know, get away?" Wes asked.

Lois set down her pen and sighed. She smiled at something from her memory. "It was my sixth grade teacher. She noticed that I had fallen…you know, 'fallen'…and walked into doors way too often. She saw through my lies and kept at me until I told her the truth. I had lied so much that the truth sounded so foreign to me."

"How come you joined CTU after all that? Why not become a teacher like the woman who saved you?"

"Yeah," Lois chuckled. "After all that abuse, why go somewhere I'd face even worse? I guess it doesn't make much sense, but I figured if mom and dad couldn't break me, the Navy would be a cinch. So I served for my five years and found CTU. Now I stop terrorists from abusing my country."

Agent Cole Ortiz

_Saving detectives from their own lack of discipline should not be part of the job_, Cole thought. He had disobeyed orders before, but he knew by now that doing so brought with it consequences of varying severity. Helping Dana hide evidence of her white trash ex-boyfriend's death had brought the two closer together as he believed all secrets were revealed. Only hours later, she betrayed his trust again. If he had followed protocol…if he had been the good agent he always had been…he could have stopped her continued sabotage and President Hassan would have survived the day, President Taylor would have had nothing to cover up, Renee Walker would still be alive, and Jack Bauer would not have gone into hiding. _It's my fault, isn't it?_

Now that he had spoken with Chloe, he dreaded facing one of those consequences. In only a matter of time, it would announce its existence to all. In all likelihood, no one would blame him, but no one could ever stop him from blaming himself. At the moment, however, he needed to focus on questioning one of their only leads into Purgadores de Tierra's plans.

"…like I said to the crazy bitch when she was rearranging my orthodontist's work, I have no desire to help terrorists. They had all these old trigger mechanisms set up for me to fix. There musta been at least twelve, but I never saw the bombs they go to. For all I know, they went to a very elaborate device meant to release laughing gas in the nearest supermarket. I know that ain't a likely scenario…"

"Wait!" Cole said, overwhelmed by the speed with which the weapons expert spoke. "Go back a bit. You said they wanted you to _fix_ old triggers?"

"That's exactly it," Ricardo Gomez replied. "I said to her, 'Hey, Chika, why don't you just build a new one. These things would only be useful if you had a soviet era weapon.' That's when she gave me this black eye. I guess she didn't like the name 'Chika' or something 'cause she didn't want to hear me talk after that. She just said 'work or we pop bullets in your boyfriend,' so I did what they asked."

_That's just great_, Cole thought. _The terrorists could be setting off twelve nukes at any moment_. "At what point did they put you in the crate?"

"I don't know, man. I lost all concept of time after a while. It could have been the pressure to finish or the loss of blood when they took me or that I didn't have a watch on me. For all I know, it could have been…"

"Was it days or hours?" Cole asked.

"Do you know anything about sensory deprivation? Without the ability to see or hear anything, what seems like days could actually be a few hours."

"Give it your best guess."

"I guess…hours."

"Good. That means the terrorists couldn't have…"

Before Cole could complete the thought, Bernard rushed into the room, an expression of mixed confusion and admiration on his face. "Sir, you'll never guess who just arrived."

Cole doubted that very much. He knew exactly who had come to lend a hand.

Jack Bauer

His first impression of the young CTU agent concerned Jack beyond measure. How could this puppy-like boy have passed CTU's stringent tests for field work? Did he even know which end of the gun to hold? No. Bernard Carlson had not impressed him in the slightest. He expected the young fellow would know about him thanks to his escapades from two years ago, but he did not think to meet a fan of his work. The way Bernard went on about Jack's record, it felt as though the lad had just met Joss Whedon and wanted to prove how much he knew about _Firefly_. It was not until Jack asked to speak with Cole that he had a moment's silence.

Within moments, Bernard led his superior back to Jack, an evident spring in the young agent's step. "It's good to see you again, Cole," Jack greeted in tandem with a firm handshake.

Cole went about explaining their situation the best he could. Jack could tell this terrorist cell had not been on the radar for long as the words "Here's everything we know" preceded a five minute summation. Nodding his understanding, Jack asked a few clarification questions about the nukes and a few other unclear details. "So where's Mandy?"

"Uh, Jack, I'm not sure I should tell you that," Cole replied, hesitant. "Last time we called you in, you tortured…"

"I don't have time for this Cole," Jack interrupted. "I respect you…like you even…but I will not let you or anyone else stand in the way of me protecting my country. Chloe called me in because of Mandy, so I'd say interrogating her is part of what I need to do."

Cole gritted his teeth and bounced on the balls of his feet before relenting. He led Jack through the police station to Interrogation Room 3 where a rotund officer stood sentry. The guard stood aside for the CTU agent without a word. Cole deactivated the door's lock with a keycard before entering. The sight of Mandy sitting at a table in chains brought back painful memories of the last day he spoke to President Palmer. She, however, seemed to have the opposite reaction.

"Jack Bauer," she announced as if reaching a climax. "They must be scraping dirt under the barrel if they called you in."

"As I recall," Jack stated, ignoring her morbid glee, "we gave you a good immunity deal with the proviso that you stay outside the United States."

"What can I say?" Mandy asked, a Cheshire grin upon her face. "I got bored living on that beach in Maui. Needed a bit of fun. So I looked through the Evil Yellow Pages and found a guy who would pay me millions to make a quick cameo in his plot to take over the world."

"World domination?" Jack scoffed. "That's the best you could come up with?"

"The world is already dominated," she replied. "We are simply purging it of those who would deny it."

"You've been drinking too much Kool-Aid," Cole objected.

"Your new terrier seems just like the last one, Jack," Mandy stated. "How long will it take for this one to die or lose a limb?"

"I don't have time for your games, Mandy. Now tell me what I want to know!"

"Of course, Jack. Anything you want. Just remind me what that is again."

Jack could not stand this woman. She was actually flirting with her interrogator. "Tell me where the bomb is!" Jack yelled.

"Bomb? I think you mean bombs…the plural form."

Jack lunged at the terrorist-for-hire and wrapped his hands around her neck. He could feel the pulse at her neck quicken as he squeezed. Yelling at her again produced no new answers. Instead, she treated him to an unexpected reaction.

"Yeah, Jack, that's it! Harder! Squeeze harder! Mmm!"

The door slammed open. "What the hell are you doing?!"

Enrique Palo

A small boy chased after his bouncy ball which had rolled up to Enrique's feet. The man picked it up, handed it over to the boy, and patted him on the head. "Thanks, Dr. Palo."

"Any time, Dennis," Enrique replied. "Just don't drop this outside. I wouldn't want you to chase after this in the middle of the road."

"I won't," Dennis insisted. "My last dentist gave us suckers at the end of our appointments."

"What?" Enrique cried. "He gave you cavities-on-a-stick?"

Dennis laughed at the man's exaggerated surprise. Within a moment, however, the mother led her son away having paid for the appointment. It amazed Dr. Palo how much children enjoyed talking to him after he finished working on their teeth whereas adults wanted to leave as fast as possible. What changed in between childhood and adulthood that made schedules more important than conversation?

"Dr. Palo, look at this," said Paula Walsh, one of his hygienists.

In one of the empty rooms, Paula sat watching the Fox News Channel, entranced with the reporter. "Why do you watch that shit? Every last one of the contributors has a political agenda."

"That's true of every journalist. Some are just better at hiding it than others."

Enrique could not argue with that. He was about to move on to his next patient who needed a wisdom tooth removed when one of the reporters caught his eye. Below her image was the name Kara Burret. After turning up the volume, he listened to her report.

"…liberal agenda never ceases to amaze me. He didn't even make it a point to discuss immigration reform in the lead-up to the election. Now he's jamming this down the American people's throats without any approval from Congress. We already have to deal with the fact that illegals are here in the first place. Now we're encouraging it? Where does it end?"

"I think the bigger question is whether the President has the power to actually do this," the program's anchor, Donald O'Farrell, stated.

Enrique could not listen to any more. He withdrew a cell phone from his pocket and headed to the supply closet in his office. After activating some equipment and a voice scrambler, he called a number. "Purgadores de Tierra requires the attention of President Smith now."


	7. 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Chapter 6

Sandra Palmer

The dollar bill would not flatten no matter how many times she smoothed the creases. She had heard of a method for keeping her bills flat from _Monk_, but she had yet to try it. Sandra made a mental not to re-watch the episode as she desperately looked for the proper number of quarters. Never before had obtaining a bag of Doritos felt like a life-and-death situation. She whipped her head from the vending machine to the hallway. Just then, Rover approached.

"Agent, do you have a dollar I could borrow?"

The secret service officer shook her head. "Ma'am, the President needs you back in the conference room. The terrorist called again."

"What?" Sandra did not bother to wait for clarification. All desire for cheesy crisps vanished from memory as she zoomed off to join the President. It seemed today would be devoid of any breaks from the action, for she had been busy dispelling rumors and focusing Kenneth over eight hours today without rest. Forty seconds of running through empty, threadbare carpeted hallways brought the Chief of Staff back to her post. She at last sympathized with Wayne's stress level from his last conscious day alive.

Wrenching the door open, she found the negotiations already in progress. _Does he turn off his brain all the time, or is today just special?_

"…done everything you asked, but this goes beyond what I am willing…no, it is entirely out of the question…because I would have no legal ground to…enough with the threats. I will not simply bow to your wishes just…no sacrificing one for many makes no sen…hello? He hung up on me!"

Sandra could not bear the ineptitude any longer. "What goes through your mind when you talk to this man? Because you either goad him into killing innocents or bow to his wishes without a fight."

Kenneth's mouth trembled as he spluttered something incomprehensible. He placed his hands into the pockets of his suit coat. "I-I don't know why you're so angry about all this. It isn't as though you've given me any options here. CTU is a crippled institution that has been stripped of its power since President Daniels' administration. Our intelligence community has nothing on this terror cell for reasons I still can't comprehend. This phantom caller is our only link to the coming attacks and he doesn't even stay on the line long enough for us to learn anything of value. Tell me what I'm supposed to do here. I'm flying blind. Where were you when I needed your support a minute ago?"

"It doesn't matter where I am when that phone rings. You make snap decisions without letting me in on the choices. How can I tell you what to do if you won't fill me in?"

Sandra watched her colleague muss up his hair with a slow, frustrated sweep across his scalp. Neither of them had been wholly wrong, but the issue at hand had nothing to do with right and wrong. How could they resolve the problem when no one knew the right thing to do? "This arguing won't get us anywhere," Kenneth finally stated. "What he wants now, this audacious villain, is for me to arrange an accident for a certain journalist."

"An accident? You mean an assassination."

"That's how I saw it, but the way he put it, it's one life in exchange for thousands. You'd think the President orders a hit every day, the way he was talking."

"And you said 'no' to his demands," Sandra stated.

"Of course. What else would I do?"

"In this situation, you say 'yes.'"

"Negotiate with a terrorist? Done that twice already. Lie to my constituents? You can check that off too. But agree to murdering a United States citizen? Sandra, I can't fathom why that would ever become acceptable. I don't care what Spock says about 'the needs of the many.' Reelection is already looking like a slim prospect without the threat of jail time looming over me."

Sandra set her fists at her hips. "How crazy do you think I am. I'm talking about buying time with the terrorist, not following through. What we do is sequester the journalist in question and leak details of her 'death' to the press. In the meantime, we have more time to look for this maniac before he creates an L.A. sized crater. This is why I keep telling you to talk to me. If you were this reactionary in the election, we never would have won. We will only find a solution if we finally work together."

"How are we going to remedy this?"

"Next time he calls, have him on speaker and make sure I'm in the room before you accept any calls."

_Ding-Ding-Ding!_ It was Sandra's phone this time. "Palmer."

"Sandra," replied a voice belonging to a chain smoker. "I've been speaking with Secretary Wicker. He says there's been a situation developing. I didn't believe him because no one included me. But then I turn on the news and see Kara Burret flicking out her reptilian tongue and spouting rumors of amnesty for illegals. I tell myself, 'that can't be right,' so I flip to another channel and NBC is playing a clip of our boy doing exactly what should be fiction. What the hell is going on?"

"I'll call you back with more details, but all you need to know for now is that terrorists are threatening to set of nukes unless we give in to their demands. CTU has confirmed the threats are legitimate, and we are doing all we can to retrieve those weapons before they are used against us. That enough information for you, Austin?"

"My God," he replied. "Call me when you can, I'm on my way to you."

Sandra pocketed her phone. "The Vice President is on his way here. It seems he has an ally we didn't expect."

"Shit. Was it General Tither? I always thought he was shifty."

"Not the issue here. You were so worried about his involvement in the first place. You wanna fill me in on why?"

Kenneth sat in one of the room's many poufy chairs. "You've met the man. What's your impression?"

"He's charismatic, successful, ambitious…"

"Three key character traits of a good politician, I agree. But I've looked into him. He's definitely dirty. It's something I discovered after I selected him, but I'm still responsible for my choice. I just don't want him to muck this up any more than it already is. Now about that prisoner I mentioned two hours ago…how is that situation proceeding?"

"He'll be out within the hour."

Detective Wes Mitchell

"What the hell are you doing?!" Wes yelled. Ripping the door open and rushing inside had been straining on his many wounds, but prizing the strange, middle-aged man off their suspect opened his eyes to new levels of pain. No sooner had the young detective saved his torturer than he found himself in a headlock.

"Who the hell are you?" the man asked, still constricting Wes' airways.

Wes tried leaning forward and flipping the much older man over his head, but the stranger saw this move coming. For someone his age, he had plenty of speed and strength to spare. Wes feared he would lose consciousness or worse, but the moody CTU agent stepped in after re-securing the prisoner. "Jack, let go."

As fast as the man had been to initiate the hold, Jack relinquished it at a sloth's pace. Wes backed away from his assailant, rubbing his neck as he went. His undirected steps placed him closer to Mandy, which did nothing to retrieve his sense of calm.

"My, oh my!" Mandy commented. "The detective take's a lickin' and comes back for more."

It only now occurred to Wes that the other three people in the room knew each other, and he had intruded on something that went beyond the day's threats. Before he could establish what exactly it all meant, Agent Ortiz cleared the room of everyone but the prisoner. The small group met in the room behind the one-way window.

The man called Jack spoke first. "One more time. Who the fuck are you?"

When Wes had first seen Jack choking their suspect through this window, he had been stooped over with his back turned. There had been no time to form any assumptions about the man. Now that he could see Jack up close, yelling, Wes drew all sorts of conclusions. The first of these being of all the men he could have crossed, Jack was the worst choice. He emitted an aura of danger and determination. Although several inches shorter than Wes, his body in combination with his menacing, scarred face intimidated the detective more than Travis' chop-shop-owning brother. Wes must have been silent too long, for Jack turned to Ortiz.

"Who is this prick?"

"This is Detective Mitchell," Agent Ortiz replied. How the man knew his name, Wes could only guess. "He's one of the locals helping out today."

"Helping?" Jack responded. "He just about fucked up the whole interrogation."

"Is that what you were doing?" Wes asked, worsening his situation with sarcasm. "I thought for sure it was attempted homicide."

"Jack knew exactly what he was doing, detective," the agent replied. A condescending tone showed up when he said the word "detective."

"I don't know how they do things at CTU. Hell, I don't even know Jack. What I do know is that we don't torture our suspects. And we certainly don't kill them!"

"Have you ever been tortured, _son_?" Jack asked. He clearly had no respect for Wes.

"Yes."

"How long?"

"About an hour."

"Well in that case, you must be an expert," Jack said, throwing up his hands in mock surrender. "I have tortured many people over the years, and they all cracked. Every last one of them told me what I needed to know whether with body language, obvious misdirection, or actual speech. I can tell you now that we will never find the nucular weapons we're looking for in time unless we throw away the rulebook and do what is necessary."

Wes listened to his every word and replayed them in his mind. He had enough information now to make one distinct judgment about Jack. _This guy's an asshole_. "You really think this woman will give up whatever information you want through torture?"

"I think I just answered that."

"You're wrong."

Agent Ortiz seemed to take this as an insult even though the statement had not been directed at him. "Jack Bauer has been handling terrorist threats since before you applied for college. Have a little respect."

"I'm telling you, torture is not the way to go here."

"Detective, I've had just about enough of you," Ortiz said. "Either help or go home."

Having been a lawyer for years before becoming a detective, forming a logical argument to sway unconvinced parties had never been an issue. As both of his opponents had just demonstrated, a moral dilemma would not placate their willingness to torture Mandy. Jack believed the result of stopping a terrorist attack would make up for any wrongdoing, a belief with which Wes could never agree. These two would, however, respond to reason if he demonstrated the pointless nature of their intentions.

"I told you that I've been tortured before. What I did not mention, and Agent Ortiz can attest to this, is that this same woman you nearly throttled is the one who did it. From this experience, I learned two things. One: she favors cutting her victims and drawing out the pain as long as possible. Two: she gets off on pain no matter who feels it. If you continue torturing her, you'll only be doing her favors. We need a different tactic to crack her."

For the first time, Jack smiled. "What did you have in mind?"

Tony Almeida

Tony lived in a sea of neon orange. Every day, it reminded him of how he had failed his late wife. When he had first been arrested for betraying his country, most of his friends refused to abandon him despite his multiple attempts to drive them away. Now that he had committed treason in Michelle's name yet again, no one took his side. He had been cast aside as a broken toy. If he remained honest with himself, Tony knew he deserved this treatment. Killing FBI agent Larry Moss had been a step too far, but he also wished Jack Bauer could have understood his plight as he had done for Jack so many times.

The obnoxious lunch bell rang seconds before his cell door opened automatically. No one wasted time appearing for meals no matter how disgusting they usually tasted. It was time to eat food, which always included socializing. In Tony's case, that also could mean an exercise in self-defense. Having been a government agent, the other inmates regarded him as a cop no matter how inaccurate the assessment. Convincing them otherwise would do no good, so he did his best to prove himself too formidable an opponent. Most people knew well enough to avoid a brawl with the former CTU agent, but some were too stubborn to learn their lesson.

As the lunch line snaked on, a guard named Matheson pulled Tony aside. Put off by the delay in mealtime, Tony asked, "What's the problem?"

"Good news, Almeida," Matheson replied. "You're getting out."

"Funny. Can I also watch _Homeland_ tonight?"

Uninterested in verbal jousting, Matheson gestured for his prisoner to walk ahead. The guard stayed behind Tony as if he expected the man to attempt escape. Believing he deserved this situation, Tony had never even considered an unauthorized exit, which put him in a minority at Los Angeles' maximum security penitentiary.

The labyrinth through which Matheson took Tony required a ten minute journey. Along the way, some of the more demented of the prisoners sent cat calls his way, asking him if they could come too. At their destination, a familiar, stern face greeted him. The man sitting at the table across from Tony had at least fifteen years on the prisoner. His head would have been bald but for the stubbly growths of dull red.

"Good afternoon, Aaron," Tony greeted. "What brings you to my humble abode?"

"Presidential matters, I'm afraid," the former secret service agent replied.

"After all the Presidents you've served, they still won't let you retire in peace."

Aaron leaned forward in his chair. He might look like an old bear in his current state, but even old bears were dangerous when crossed. "You ought to know by now. Becoming a government agent makes for a lifetime of duty. Any other citizen would have been imprisoned for assault and homicide, but you were charged with treason. Do you know why? Because you swore an oath to protect your country and you tossed it aside for a personal vendetta. I swore that same oath, so whenever Uncle Sam gives me a ring, I answer the call no matter my feelings at the time."

"Yeah," was all Tony could say.

"For reasons made clear to me only recently, the President of my beloved United States has been acting odd all day. As it turns out, terrorists are once again making threats against our country. The result of this being, I have been ordered to transfer you into my custody and delivered to an address at such time as the terrorists see fit."

Tony crossed his right foot under his left and twiddled his thumbs. "So Smith is negotiating with terrorists. How much time did he spend debating the ethics of that action, I wonder?"

"That does not matter. Your only concern is to tell me all you can about Purgadores de Tierra."

Tony scratched the itch on the right side of his scalp. "That's Spanish for purgers of the Earth if you added a 'la' to the middle."

"I could have gone to Google Translate if I wanted to know that. Tell me what you know about the organization."

Racking his brain for a vague memory of the phrase brought him no connection to his past. "Nothing," he replied truthfully. It might have been the bored look on his face or a deep-seated hatred, but Aaron would not accept the answer. Former Agent Pierce slammed his hand on the metallic table. "I can't tell you what I don't know."

Aaron replied, "Then why would this terrorist ask for you specifically?"

"I don't know. Retribution? Are you sure there's no more information to give me?"

"The terrorist did have a message for you. Krillbait. Does that mean anything to you?"

The word sent Tony into tailspin of horror. He knew exactly what was happening and who to blame for the attacks.

Mandy

Sitting in the well-lit interrogation room did nothing to keep her in suspense. Mandy had sat in plenty of rooms exactly like this one. The Spartan décor and stale air made her feel at home. Ever since her mother taught her how to boost cars at thirteen, she did not spend many years without seeing one or two. The past several years, she had gotten better at covering her tracks and making her involvement in crimes invisible. There was something nurturing about these rooms, however, that caused her to crave a good police interrogation every now and then.

When Jack Bauer wrapped his powerful hands around her neck not twenty minutes ago, her whole body quaked with a mixture of pain and pleasure. It was quickly becoming her favorite experience. Then that blond detective had to butt in and spoil her fun. Wes may have been a fun plaything in the back of her van, but she did not like his sudden reappearance. It was as if she were on a roller coaster which someone stopped mid-loop.

While she waited for another spat of questioning, she fantasized about how else she could have tortured Wes Mitchell. It had been a dream of hers to use common household items to skin someone alive, but she knew the pain involved would probably kill her victim too quick. As she thought of a new use for toothpicks, the door opened. The CTU agent whose name Mandy had not learned entered. She thought he possessed a quality more intimidating than Wes but far less potent than Jack. Several other characteristics about him fit between the other two men: the number of scars, his height, and his cuteness factor.

"You are going to tell me where to find your boss's stash of nuclear weapons," he informed her.

Intrigued by the control the young man demonstrated, Mandy replied, "Oh?"

"Just tell me right now what it's going to take so we don't waste time."

"A new immunity deal signed by the President that gives me a free flight to any country of my choosing," Mandy replied.

"Done," the agent said, producing a signed document which had been faxed to the police department.

"And…a minute alone with that detective."

"Why all the interest?"

Mandy smiled. "When you open your Christmas presents, do you play with them once and throw them away, or do you take care of them so you can use them over and over?"

"Detective Mitchell has gone through enough of your…"

"Then there's no deal."

No sooner had she uttered this threat than the door reopened and Wes stumbled inside. _A willing participant? Even better._ Wes indicated to the CTU agent to head out, his thumb pointed over his shoulder. In no time at all, Mandy sat alone with her prey once more.

"I'm guessing you have one question, right? Why?"

Wes refused to sit at the table with her, staring at the one-way window as if he could see through to the other side. In reality, all he saw was the reflected version of the woman he despised. "I suppose. But you aren't going to tell me, are you?"

"I don't see a purpose in explaining motivation. I killed her. It was fun. Now I'm off to my next great adventure, no consequences."

Mandy purred as she took in his trembling, quaking fury. It was the Oreo Cheesecake to follow her three-course meal of pain. Wes turned to face her. The telling twitch in his eye let her know all she needed. He wanted her dead. Some baseless moral code, however, held the detective back. Had death been her goal, manipulating him into carrying it out would have been simple.

"You wanted me to suffer. You succeeded. Now tell me where those nukes are."

"Downtown Los Angeles," she replied. "Go to the Bank of America Plaza. My employer is preparing to set off the first one in the next hour."

Doctor Emma Ryan

Having spoken with Alex hours before, nothing could have shocked Dr. Ryan more than the call she received from Captain Sutton. Knowing Wes as she did, the traumatic experience had devastated him, but the young man would never admit it to anyone. If she had learned anything about the partnership between Travis and Wes, it was that the latter did not communicate when troubled. If he ever managed to manage his feelings, it would not happen until he had burned every relational bridge.

In order to head off the problem before it irreversibly damaged the man's life and career, she had driven to the station at speeds which risked her driver's license. Under normal circumstances, she would await their next couples' group therapy session, but she could not expect him to talk about something so painful to people who often criticized his ability to share.

Dr. Ryan had visited the precinct before, but there seemed to be an abnormally high number of people in the office today. Seeing unfamiliar faces in a police department is not exactly unusual as captured criminals do take up some space, but she did not see any of these on this occasion. Every person milling about was a professional in law enforcement, though she suspected many of them were federal agents rather than police officers.

"Hey, doc!" yelled Travis from across the room. He sat in an office chair which rolled about the room on five wheels, propelled with only one foot. The other had been bandaged. Though his voice did not give it away, Travis' face displayed a fair amount of pain.

"Travis! Do you know where Detective Mitchell is?"

Detective Marks appeared disappointed, though the therapist could not determine a reason. "He was in a debrief, last I heard…"

At that moment, four men and two women emerged from a hallway which Dr. Ryan knew led to the interrogation room. At the center of the group stood Wes. Shaking hands with a shorter, older man in a plaid button-down, the detective parted ways with the others and headed toward his partner. Aside from the multiple abrasions on his face and slow steps, one would hardly know he had just endured significant emotional and physical trauma. _It's worse than I imagined,_ she assumed right away. _He may be smiling now, but he's hurting. How to address that issue…I'll have to figure something out._

"Travis, we've got a major break in the case. As it turns out, going to that warehouse was the best thing we could have done. We've got a quick update meeting in the conference room. Want me to wheel you in?"

From the fleeting smirk on Travis' face, Dr. Ryan surmised he felt just as awkward about his partner's behavior. "I think the doc wants a word with you."

Travis pushed off from his desk and rolled toward the conference room, clipping an officer as he went. The resulting coffee spillage would have been comical had Dr. Ryan been watching. "How are you?" she asked Wes as they edged to a more secluded section of the office. It was a question with an obvious answer, but sometimes it helped people to start with an easy one.

"Better than Travis, I expect. He won't walk for at least a month. He's just lucky the shooter didn't take out his kneecap or blow his leg clean off."

"You're avoiding the question," Dr. Ryan commented.

"Oh. So which one told you? Was it Sutton or Travis?"

"My source if information is not important. Your emotional health, however…"

Wes displayed his grin which indicated frustrated anger rather than cheerfulness. "My emotional health? Do you even know what's going on today? Terrorists are planning to blow up my city. I've got to help stop them."

"Why? Haven't you done enough to help?"

"It won't _be_ enough until these bastards are dead or in chains!"

"You're taking this personally. You never do that with cases unless you think you made the situation worse. So let's talk about what's really bothering you."

"What's really…what's r…you amaze me, Emma! You think I have time to talk about this right now? The clock's running out, and I need to stop these people."

"There are plenty of agents and officers here to stop terrorists. What are you going to do that they cannot?"

"You're worried about my safety? I track down killers every day."

"That is not why I'm worried. I'm afraid you don't care about your own safety. Because of Alex. Because you couldn't save her."

Wes folded his arms in front of his chest. It was a classic body language signal that let Dr. Ryan know she had hit her mark. For several seconds, neither of them spoke until Wes whispered, "What do you know about it?"

A cruel memory bit her as the cold wind outside. She shivered. Remembering this particular event always gave her a feeling as though she had eaten moldy bread. "I've been there before, Wes," she whispered, hoping no one else would hear. "I never told you why I became a couples' therapist. You might not have even given it a second thought. But when I was much younger, still in college, I got married. It was a foolish decision. We had no means to support ourselves except what we made on the side at the school library. So we had a blissful two months of marriage before we realized that living at Cambridge as an independent couple with no money was not at all the romantic future we'd envisioned.

"We fought all the time, usually about our spending habits and debts. But it got to the point where we had long stretches of giving each other the cold shoulder. During one of these periods, we were out to a nearby deli when a man came in the store. He had a knife and intended to use it on the shopkeeper's wife unless he handed over all the money. My husband wanted to interfere, but I tried holding him back. Nothing could stop Richard, though. Not when he thought he could help. He tried wrestling the blade away from the thief, but he ended up with a stab in the stomach instead. The fool ran right into the blade, cutting his own artery."

"And you're telling me this why?" Wes asked.

"I never got the chance to make things right with Richard. He was gone before the shopkeeper finished handing over his meager earnings for the day. For a long time, I blamed myself. What if I hadn't been such a bitch with the money troubles? What if I had held him back? Would he still be alive were it not for me? So I went back to Cambridge, sure that I could help settle couples' problems so they would not suffer my fate."

At this point, a federal agent with ultra short black hair approached. "Detective Mitchell, we need you in there."

"Just a minute," Wes croaked out. Once the agent returned to the conference room, the detective said, "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but…uh…I need to help here."

"I understand. Just know that this pain you feel will be there a long time, but you don't have to go through it alone."

Derek Grymes

Styrofoam cups have a certain property that some find funny but others find annoying. They form a static-electric field which cohesively bonds them to each other when they are stacked. As Derek Grymes discovered during his short water break, it is most annoying for the people standing in line than for the person retrieving one. His coworkers urged him to hurry up as he placed a cup beneath the spigot. Hearing the water splash down onto the spongy material had a relaxing affect on him. It worked far better than Mozart's fortieth symphony, which Darla Flenderson had selected for ambiance.

Upon removing himself from everyone else's way, he took a long draft of the refreshing, cool liquid. Was it possible to enjoy water this much? Scanning the floor for his supervisor, he sipped his water as long as he could. Darla might have said wasting time equated to stealing from the company, but everyone knew water and computers do not mix with pleasant results. As the modified movie line went, "If you install a water cooler, they will come."

Derek worked as an entry-level clerk on the forty-seventh floor at the Bank of America Plaza in Los Angeles. He could only describe the work of documenting online customer complaints as dull, hence his extended drink break. Why could none of them write in complete sentences? Or use "there," "their," and "they're" correctly? Or spell? There were multiple times throughout the day in which he felt as though reading the complaint upside-down would have been beneficial to completing his assignment.

After completing his cup, he disposed of the container and sat down at his desk once more. Refilling would attract his co-workers' attention. Many of them were prone to neurotic behavior, and he never knew when one of his actions would set them off. Just as he finished translating the complaint, "Yur fone no. iz nut werkin," the day's boredom ended.

The office doors slammed open, admitting five men, dressed all in black. Ski masks covered every inch of their heads except the eyes and part of the nose. In their hands, they carried the latest in automatic machine gun technology. Three of them had also strapped themselves with an additional handgun. The intruders spread throughout the office space in silence as the workers watched, not knowing what to do. A few cried out in fear as if that would do them any good.

Without any provocation, all five pulled their triggers as one. Men and women all around Derek screamed as bullets ripped through their bodies. It amazed him how loud everything sounded. His father had taken him hunting from an early age, and he had gone to shooting ranges even as an adult, but none of those experiences could have prepared him for the noise he now heard. Perhaps the sense of danger and panic enhanced his hearing. Maybe the screaming in his ears or the closed environment contributed. Somehow, Mozart managed to make his music heard through the hail of fire.

Colleen Nelson, his desk neighbor, leapt under her desk, which Derek recognized as one of the worst mistakes one could make in the situation. He tried calling her over to him, but Colleen, teary-eyed and frightened, shook her head as if she knew with certainty the desk would protect her. Staying low, Derek mapped out a route of escape. The shooters were all focused on the western half of the office, so he guessed they did not know about the eastern exit. He motioned for other co-workers to follow, but they were stubborn as Colleen. They were lambs, waiting around for their own slaughter.

The killers stopped to reload their weapons, allowing for a few moments of nothing but symphony. Derek watched as Thomas Poirot charged at the nearest attacker. In theory, it should have been a good decision, but that tactic only works if everyone rushes at a singular antagonist. Thomas grabbed for the assailant's machine gun and succeeded in staggering him, but the other four gunmen soon mowed him down with a new volley of bullets.

Another employee tried begging for mercy. With arms held high, he called for a cease-fire. A laughing gunman responded with a perfect headshot. Once the body dropped, the same shooter added more bullet holes to the corpse, intimidating any others who might make a play for controlling the situation.

Derek slunk away on all fours, hoping none of the well-trained attackers would spot him. Each movement forward caused anxiety beyond anything he knew. At any moment, someone was bound to see the escape attempt and he would be dead before he knew what happened. The only option was to keep moving as fast as possible. When no one sent projectiles at him, he opened the door and slid out. Careful not to make any noise, he guided the door to a slow, silent closure. To his right was the stairwell and to his left the elevators. He wanted to take the easy way, but a sixth gunman exited the elevator at that very moment. He had attached a rucksack and a sniper rifle to his back in addition to his other weapons.

Abandoning caution, he pushed open the stairwell door, ran through, and allowed it to close of its own accord. Down the levels he flew, sometimes skipping three steps at a time. He tripped down one flight but regained his footing without major injury. Once he reached the thirtieth floor, he paused to catch his breath. He panted. He had never been around so much death. Convulsing, he felt acid and pieces of undigested food make its way up his digestive tract. His throat burned as the vomit splashed onto the concrete stairs.

* * *

Now that you have finished this chapter, please participate in the poll on my profile. I won't be updating until I have several votes. Please feel free to comment, ask questions, or make suggestions.


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